


The Sheets Were Warmer With You

by RoyaleBullets



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Although I'm Probably Exaggerating, Broken Bones, But I'm not entirely sure, Drug Use, Hospital, I guess we'll see, Immense Guilt, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vehicles, emotion, i'll add more as i write, possible happy ending, relationship, runaways - Freeform, someone might die, speed - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-01-23 17:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyaleBullets/pseuds/RoyaleBullets
Summary: Dying in a car accident isn't a romantic enough way to go for Gerard. But he may just find the love of his life in almost doing so.





	1. Roots

**Author's Note:**

> "To die would be an awfully big adventure." - Peter Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where it all began, per se.

He stood there; unwelcome and distant compared to the others, void of any and all emotion that was typically felt at that point in life. His hands were in his pockets, sweating from being kept inside for so long, yet his face held no expression, and he looked stone cold. The wind blew bits of his hair out of his face as if with force, for they looked too greasy to ever be moved effortlessly. There were bags under his eyes, the lack of sleep finally catching up to him as if the coffee had stopped working.

Gerard looked like he was the one in the coffin.

The funeral was going rather uneventfully; no one there was actually someone he’d _known_. The priest was most likely saying something incredibly moving since a few of the guests were slouched as if in pain, while other heartless members of the family were just as empty as Gerard. It was strange not to listen to the words he had been mentally preparing himself to hear, but he was standing quite a distance away from the guests after deciding that there was no need for him to stand near the coffin. 

Gerard fidgeted, bouncing up and down internally, as if like a dog being teased with a leash on its neck. At that moment, he felt like a cat though. He was calm, he told himself, collected. He just couldn’t bring himself to admit that he felt sad.

She was his best friend, but she had finally turned her back like everyone else, and he was finally alone. The nerves were becoming too much, he needed a break. 

Gerard stepped back, further away from the ceremony, essentially ignoring it completely. He found a tree, and made his way over to it, leaning against the shedding bark as his hand searched for the pack. He needed cigarettes, the cancerous sticks being the only thing left to help him, for he was in an endless rabbit hole, and he never would’ve seen the light of day again. His fingers found the small box, and he fumbled with it before finally pushing out one of the few cigarettes left inside. He then lit it up, the lighter weighing heavy in his hand as he stared at it, the initials _E.L.R._ illuminated in the cloudy light. The silver shined back, revealing the raven color in his hair, and he wanted to throw it away, the furthest that he could, but he refrained. 

The lighter was forever a timeless piece, it had outlived its owner, and it remained the only reminder of her he had left. He stared at it, hoping that it would bring her back, but he knew it wouldn’t. The universe wasn’t doing him any favors.

Gerard suddenly remembered the lit cigarette that he held in between his fingers, so he tucked the lighter away and brought up the stick to lips, inhaling its fumes with more passion than anyone in his family. Smoking to him was an art. Very few smoked for the pleasure of smoking, many smoked for the addiction. It was blatantly wrong, in Gerard’s opinion. 

His gaze moved up to the skies. It was grey, clouds were mixed in darker and lighter shades, and it looked like it was going to rain. The grass surrounding the other gravestones was dead, much like the endless view of bodies buried in that field. It was extremely quiet, the faint sobbing of the women from his ceremony being the only thing he could hear, and the path that divided the two large segments of the graveyard was cracked with disrespect. There was no one around; he was alone.

He didn’t know what he felt. It was almost always a guessing game for anyone who wanted to read him, but there especially, he was indecipherable. Gerard squinted, scanning the gravestones that ran through the cemetery until he found a crow perched on one. The crow bounced and pecked at whatever was on the rock, hitting its sore beak over and over even if the absence of any food was blatantly obvious. Crows were just dumb, in Gerard’s opinion.

And yet he stood there, like a crow perching on a tombstone, except his tombstone was one of feelings, engraved with hopeless sadness by a stick of steel that was lit by a fire that burned forever. But his mind was darker. The cigarette had been practically finished by then, turning into ash between his fingers. It was burning him, leaving marks similar to others that were already there, and the person who once begged him to stop letting it do so was finally gone. 

And that had sunk in suddenly; she was finally gone. Gerard hated her.

“Gerard,” Mikey had suddenly appeared next to him, while the other hadn’t moved, and made no effort to do so. 

Gerard stayed leaned against the tree, ignoring his younger brother with newly found patience from the cigarette, and sighed softly. He then opened his eyes, rolling his head lazily against the bark and eyed the boy. Mikey looked tired, probably a mixture of emotional and physical exhaustion, probably because of Gerard. The young boy knew that Gerard would break down if Elena ever left, it was inevitable, and here Gerard was, broken. There weren’t enough cigarettes in the world to keep his patience contained; there was nothing in the world actually. Mikey doubted that time would solve anything. He doubted that Gerard would be fixed someday. And he was smart to do so.

Gerard emptily stared into the younger boy, scanning the bags and forming worry lines. He traced his eyes over them, predicting how each would look, and wondering when they would finally be permanently formed. Mikey was suffering just as much, if not more than his brother, but the other had just lost all hope, and couldn’t be blamed; at least not yet. Gerard traced his features, memorizing them as if for the last time. He admired the young man, who didn’t look very young at all. Mikey wore glasses, the ones that were Grandfather’s back when he was young. They didn’t suit his face too well, and they were a bit too big for him, their constant sliding kept bothering Gerard. His hair was finally shaped, something that no one ever really got to see since Mikey wore a hat everywhere, but it just made him look older.

It hurt Gerard that he was putting so many problems onto his brother’s shoulders, but he was selfish and would never admit in feeling guilty, so he looked away, back to the rest of the cemetery, back to the rest of the bodies.

“Gerard, it’s over.” Mikey’s voice trembled a bit as if he was afraid of pushing his brother’s over the edge, but the other was too far gone to be pushed; he didn’t care. “We’re going home." Then he left, the footsteps of the boy's Oxford shoes leaving a trail through the hardening mud, crunching through the leaves, and Gerard looked down to see his own feet, admiring their stains from the dying grass.

November was his least favorite month.

With a sigh, he heaved himself off of the tree, starting toward the coffin with a look of utter despair. Surely, everyone gave him looks for disappearing earlier, but he couldn’t be bothered. They didn’t know what he actually felt. 

Mikey probably looked the most sympathetic out of the family, a seemingly neutral expression on his face Gerard imagined it to be one that cared. He was watching Gerard stumble through the crowd of people surrounding the grave, and mutter apologies every once in a while until he met his mother’s side. She held an expression just like Mikey’s, neutral but solemn, and the black hat on her head hid the worry lines on her face that had appeared far too early.

Gerard stared at her for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing together at her failure to acknowledge him. She kept her gaze at the grave, her wavy hair falling to her shoulders as she sniffled, ignoring everything else around her. He wanted to ask her if she alright, but that would’ve been a stupid question, he knew. No one is really alright when their mother passes. Instead, he looked at her for a moment, then back at the coffin buried six feet deep into the ground. 

How dare they write _‘beloved mother and grandmother’_ ? She was so much more than that to Gerard. She was a hero who saved him over and over again, the only person with whom the troubled boy was truly honest. But she was gone, and he hated the universe for punishing him so. What had he done in life that was so bad? What crime had he committed? He truly had no clue as he stared down at the lifeless stone.

And at one point, everyone had left the gathering. Only Donna Way and her son were left standing side-by-side in front of their relative, Gerard seeing something out of the corner of his eye that he thought resembled a tear falling from her cheek, but other than that, she showed nothing. 

That was one of the only bonding moments they had. 

And even then, Gerard heard a quiet sigh coming from his mother’s lips, followed by a tap on his shoulder from her delicate hand. Footsteps then echoed through the dying leaves as the woman walked away, and Gerard was alone, in front of Elena.

It was terrifying. 

“Gerard,” Mikey suddenly appeared next to him again, and Gerard realized that he was spacing out far more than usual. His control over observations was slowly slipping away, and that was even more terrifying. 

Gerard looked over to his brother, seeing his shadow take the place of where their mother stood moments ago, or so he thought. Mikey looked nothing but an adult then and there, perhaps acting even older than Gerard himself, but it was the excess of pity that kept getting to him. 

“Gerard, it’s time to go.” Mikey said softly, still seeming to be afraid of pushing anything. 

Gerard ignored the boy and stared at the grave, suddenly feeling mixed emotions flow through him all at once. There was a sound of teeth grinding that came from him, startling Mikey slightly because he knew that this was the beginning of a downward spiral. He hoped he could stop it. He also knew that he couldn’t.

“Gerard, let’s go.” The boy’s soft voice rang through his ears again, snapping the other out of a daze momentarily. In a minute, Gerard was lost again, and he went deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole mind of his, when all he did physically, was stare into the block of cement.

Mikey’s snake-thin hand then reached for his brother’s arm, in an effort to pull the other way home because it was beginning to get cold. The non-existent sun was probably starting to set, and the winds did nothing but pick up, so everyone wanted to get home. Gerard didn’t.

And Mikey tugged, but his brother wouldn’t move, and it didn’t take much effort to hold back against the gentle pull of the younger boy. It was only when Mikey tugged again that Gerard had to forcefully hold back. So he tugged, again and again, uttering the older boy’s name with every pull, until both hands went to try.

Mikey tugged more, trying to move his brother with every ounce of his strength, and Gerard had to turn his shoulder to get a better balance. 

“Gerard, come on.” He mumbled for what probably was the thousandth time that day, but Gerard just shook his head, his brows furrowing together and it looked like he was about to cry. 

And really, he was. After all, how could someone feel when everything that they ever really connected with was just buried in front of them, and they didn’t even have the guts to say goodbye? How could they feel when the pain was unbearable? How could someone feel when everyone whom they resent was living the life of their dreams, but they were suffering in what felt like agony burning them over and over until all but ashes were left?

Because that was what Gerard felt, under no exaggeration. 

“Gerard, come on.” Mikey repeated, and pulled Gerard as hard as he could, while Gerard shook his head more violently in return.

Tears were spilling, that was it, that was as long as he could hold it for. Now that near him was only his brother, Gerard felt more inclined to cry for the loss of his grandmother, and now, he didn’t want to leave her side.

“No, Mikey, no.” He cried out, but Mikey tugged harder, tilting his whole body in an empty effort to move Gerard. It was like a twisted game of tug-of-war, where one end was dying, and the other trying to save its opponent, but the dying thought it was already dead, and it didn’t want to be saved. Gerard dropped to his knees, anchoring himself on the ground, and only then did Mikey let go. Gerard sobbed, letting the tears fall in front of Elena’s grave as he slouched forward, touching his head to the dying grass near her. 

“I’m sorry.” He croaked in between sobs, and his hands reached up to tug on his hair in a failing effort to hurt himself. He was in agony, he did want to die. He didn’t necessarily know whom he was apologizing to, either. It was just said out into the universe, perhaps Gerard was seeking forgiveness for whatever sin he had committed, or maybe it was to his grandmother herself. Perhaps Gerard thought that he wasn’t good enough, that he could’ve been a better grandson if he called at least one more time. Or maybe he was apologizing to his brother, who had been carrying the family’s sanity on his young shoulders, age catching up to him far faster than it should’ve been. Gerard knew that he could’ve been a better brother, he loved Mikey, he really did, and he also knew that the boy deserved a better brother. 

Gerard sobbed and sobbed, the tears never seemed to stop flowing, but Mikey said nothing. The boy waited for his brother to stop crying, he knew it was better than forcing him home and having him be locked in a room where there was nothing sharp that could pierce the skin. In that room, there would’ve had to have been no windows, no wood, no pencils or paper, since Gerard’s creative mind would’ve found a way with just about anything if he really set it to do so. It would’ve just had to have been a plain cube of a room, with peeling wallpaper and a rotting carpet so that the young soul would understand that life had to be lived. 

Mikey turned away after the sight of his hero falling apart became too much. He looked to their car parked in the lot with the rest of the leaving guests, where their mother stood, the same empty expression as before plastered on her face exactly the same way. In between her fingers, Mikey could see a cigarette, and the smoke blew in the direction of the wind as the woman stared at Gerard. She stared at him just like she’d stared at the grave, leaving Mikey to wonder if she saw them both as the same dead soul with no possible way to be saved. 

It hurt more for Mikey, it felt like he was the only one who would be able to face people with no dramatic expression, one that perhaps masked the true emotions that the family felt, and gift-wrapped it with a pretty bow for everyone to gawk at.

Gerard’s sobs echoed through the field, and he made no sign of any will to move from his hurtful position, so Mikey walked away from him. The young boy made his way past the other graves, wondering if people did love their dead relatives as much as Gerard loved his grandmother. Eventually, he approached the car with Donna leaned against its door, and her husband waiting in the driver’s seat. They were both smoking, each emotionally distant from one another with no effort to connect at that moment. 

“Is he coming?” Donna asked her son, her raspy voice standing out more than usual as the cancer stick in her hand added on its recent effect to a fuller extent. 

“I don’t think so.” Mikey answered, squinting through his glasses.

Donna nodded, and pushed herself off of the car door, opening it after having thrown the finished cigarette onto the ground. She climbed inside, turning to the young boy once more.

“Are you coming, or are you staying?” She asked.

“I’ll stay with him.” 

She nodded again and turned her gaze to the front window pane, letting her hand resting on the door handle before she squinted at the road in front of them. It looked like she wanted to say something, hence her hesitation, but nothing came out of her mouth, and eventually, the door closed with a thud, everything but the sound of the car engine stayed silent.

The car sped away, leaving Mikey alone in the parking lot, and alone in general. The vehicle left a trail of dust behind itself, a cloud that flew prettily through the air before settling down again. He watched them leave until they were completely out of view, before turning back to Gerard and walking over to him once again.

And Mikey sat under a tree, waiting for his hero to stop crying over their grandmother when really, Gerard should’ve realized that Elena had been Mikey’s grandmother too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First fic! Opinions?


	2. Boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard confuses colors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A re-upload because the last one was terrible and I hated it very, very much. This one should be better. The storyline is a bit different and has some details that will be mentioned in the next chapter. I'm sorry, I don't know where my head was. The next chapter should be up within the next few days because I don't like socializing, so this is my dedication to free time.

Every day dragged incredibly slowly after the funeral. Gerard had really spiraled out of control. Night terrors haunted him at night far worse than he had ever seen. There were monsters that the seventeen-year-old’s creative mind seemed to have spent a lot of time in developing. Gerard was breaking into millions of pieces, each one then shattered into its own fragments, and there was nothing left but dust. He had spent countless days staring at one wall, god knows what he was seeing in it. The bed he was sitting on was developing a flattening area in its mattress, but Gerard didn’t care. He was exhausted and drained from the nightmares and lack of sleep, and Mikey was right: there weren’t enough cigarettes in the world.

Gerard hardly ate as well, he only smoked. Whenever he went outside to the backyard, he was only ever seen with a cigarette between his fingers, occasionally it traveled up to his lips. Then the bench began to develop an uneven surface from how much cigarettes were left burning there. The grass was dead, but Gerard didn’t see it. The sky was dead, but Gerard didn’t recognize its changes. Eventually, after that November had passed, there came the winter, and the grass was gone, and the sky was gray. Then the summer, the fall, and there came November again. But Gerard still sat on that bench, and still smoked his cigarette, and Mikey still watched him from the window in his room upstairs.

The months turned into years. Gerard grew older, suddenly, he was twenty years old, and Mikey turned sixteen that year. Gerard got a job at an art company, but he wasn’t mentally present. The company had seen his talents, they employed him without a second thought, and he was left making an uneven surface on his office chair in a sea of cubicles instead. Mikey lived through high school and its bullies, distancing himself from his older brother who ignored everyone else anyway. 

Then Gerard turned twenty-one and bought himself an apartment. Mikey turned seventeen, and lived in his room, crying himself to sleep from loneliness, and from the loss of a brother. Gerard turned twenty-two; Gerard turned twenty-three; Gerard turned twenty-four. That brought us to the present year, where Gerard wasn’t mentally aware either. Mikey had been nineteen, having recently turned twenty-two months prior to this particularly gruesome day in Gerard’s office. 

The brothers existed in the same world, although millions of lightyears away from each other, on opposite ends of the earth. Gerard sat, staring at the undeveloped pictures on the artboard in front of him, while Mikey contemplated on whether or not to touch the phone. Gerard groaned, wishing for another cup of coffee to appear in front of him instead, while Mikey contemplated whether or not he should dial a certain number. Gerard stood from his ghastly office chair, and walked out from the cubicle to the staff room with the coffee machine, while Mikey’s fingers shook as he pressed the call button. Gerard sat back down in his chair and drank the warm shit water they called coffee when his phone rang.

Well, out of boredom, Gerard answered the phone without looking at who was calling. He probably wouldn’t’ve picked up if he knew. “Hello?” Whoever was on the other line didn’t like to talk, it seemed. There came no direct answer, only short breaths and stuttering that Gerard really didn’t bother to try to decipher. He furrowed his brows, patiently waiting for something to be uttered at least as he stared at the characters, and thought of how to color them. The seconds ticked by rather quickly, Gerard held the phone in his hand, forgetting it was even there when a strange sound echoed through one ear.

It was a sound he’d known for a long time, the image of childhood had supposedly been associated with it. And even though he heard it through the static of the phone, which he just remembered he was holding, it was just as clear to him as the day Mikey was born. That was because it was Mikey crying. 

Gerard’s breathing hitched. It wasn’t like he knew what to do. He hadn’t actively or willingly spoken to his brother in a very long time. He hadn’t called much, he hardly picked up the phone. Gerard lacked human decency. Elena didn’t teach him how the hell to live when she’d be gone. But there was his little brother, which Gerard had suddenly remembered existed, like a lightbulb turning on. God, Gerard didn’t remember how old the man was. Fuck, Mikey turned twenty, two months ago. Had Gerard even called to wish him a happy birthday? 

“Mikey?” Gerard whispered unwillingly through the phone. And really, he didn’t want to be a complete twat of a brother to someone so kind, but it was hard when Gerard felt alone. It was hard when all he could think about was how his grandmother was gone. Wasn’t she Mikey’s as well though? Why had Gerard forgotten that?

The person didn’t say anything in response, but Gerard was sure that it was his brother. Then, a sob was huffed out, almost as if it had escaped with force, Gerard confirmed his suspicions. He contemplated on what to do, wishing for the seat under him to swallow him along with his problems. Running away was just easier, Gerard wanted to run away from all of the dilemmas that life held for him. But alas, nothing was happening, and Gerard was still sitting in that chair, and thinking about what the hell to say.

“I um,” Gerard started, but to no avail. He couldn’t continue that sentence. His mind wouldn’t focus, he couldn’t think of the morally correct thing to say after being an ignorant piece of shit for the past seven years. God, what the hell did his mom look like? Gerard couldn’t remember the color of her eyes.

But he decided that sitting on an ugly chair, and thinking on the phone wasn’t going to get him anywhere. The idea of a phone call was probably also difficult for Mikey, and whatever had happened, Gerard felt that he should be there at least this once. Of course, he wanted to be there more often, but that was a recent and sudden decision that he’d made about five seconds ago. “Where are you, Mikey?”

A sniffle came from the other end of the line. Gerard felt his ears light on fire. There was extreme relief that Mikey made any noise, that he let his big brother know he was all right. But Gerard didn’t deserve that, and he knew it himself. Mikey then cleared his throat, Gerard imagined him tugging his glasses up his nose. Those glasses felt like a sight for sore eyes, Gerard hadn’t seen those in forever, he wondered briefly if Mikey had the same ones as before, the ones from seven years ago. 

“The cemetery.” And then there was silence. There were no more cries, no more sniffles, or sighs. Mikey had hung up without saying so much as three words, Gerard understood that. He had been a horrible brother, and people didn’t change overnight. Gerard would have to put the effort in, he didn’t seem to like that either, but on the other hand, Mikey needed him. 

The phone was thrown down lazily onto the wooden desk. It cracked a tad bit, most people would’ve had a breakdown at that sight, but Gerard stared at it with little emotion instead. Then his gaze rose to the artboard, where nothing was remotely close to done. He couldn’t remember the stupid deadline for that thing, he didn’t care either. He didn’t like that job. He didn’t want that life. Gerard could live without a job for a bit. He got paid well and often, he didn’t party much. But funding his nicotine addiction would’ve been a problem if he was penniless. Mikey would lend him money if anything. He doubted that, but he hoped. 

Gerard stood up, feeling the chair roll out from under his legs. He walked out of the cubicle, and toward the elevator, and eventually, found himself in his old car. He stared at the steering wheel for a bit, admiring its clean leather, how Gerard had hardly ever rubbed his dirty fingers on it. The leather seat under him felt sturdier than most he had been sitting on, he wondered why that was. And eventually, the car started, and he drove solemnly to the only cemetery he knew in Belleville. 

The man tried to recall his personal life. There wasn’t really much one to begin with, but he felt terrible for his baby brother. The questions just started pouring into his head. They were mostly about Mikey. He didn’t care much for his parents, they had each other. That is if they were still speaking to one another. But whom did Mikey have? God, Gerard suddenly felt terrible. He clutched the wheel absentmindedly as he drove, watching the streets merge. They all looked the same, Gerard couldn’t remember what each one was called. Then suddenly, he appeared in front of the cemetery gates, exactly where he’d left his consciousness seven years ago.

He parked on the gravel pavement, all the memories basically started to pour in by themselves. He remembered where his parents’ car had been parked at Elena’s funeral, where Donna stared him down as if he were a walking omen for disaster, and where her husband said nothing to disagree with her. Except that his parents’ car actually did stand there, looking as bleak as the rest of the world. Gerard remembered that Mikey probably still lived with their parents, drove their car, and so he wasn’t going to be able to get any money from him. Yes, that was what he was wondering as he sat in his car, and gazed at his parents’.

Moments had passed, Gerard wasn’t actually aware of how long ago he’d spoken to his brother, but it didn’t matter to him. His thoughts lingered warily on the state of Mikey’s mental health, how he was living, if he fucking had friends. Gerard didn’t know shit. That was the trigger that pulled him out of the safe zone of his car. Gerard lazily closed the door, and walked through the dirt, past the graves that held empty names. There had been so many more than he remembered. So many people had died since Gerard had been there, since he’d lost himself, and wailed in his misery of something other people considered negligible. Yes, Gerard had to learn the hard way that people died, as did many others. But the others never turned their backs on living, breathing family. Just Gerard. 

He found Mikey sat under a tree. Mikey was near Elena’s grave, but it was as if the young boy didn’t want to be near it. As if he’d wanted to talk to her while being away from everyone else. Gerard’s heart churned at how much he related to his brother. He kept walking, treading through the muddy, wet grass until he was very close to Mikey. Mikey didn’t acknowledge him much. Mikey stared at the grave in the distance. 

Gerard gazed at his brother. Mikey wasn’t wearing glasses anymore, his hair looked clean and cut, his eyes were tired. Mikey wasn’t sleeping at night, it looked. Maybe even crying instead. Gerard’s stomach dropped slightly. His brother looked foreign to him, he looked so much more _grown up_. Gerard didn’t know how to relate to that. He was, after all, living in his own miserable fantasy.

“Hey.”

Mikey glanced up, his gaze lingering on Gerard before retreating back to the area with the grave. So Gerard turned to look at it too, but he couldn’t find it. He couldn’t remember where Elena was buried. His eyes searched, but to no prevail, so he frowned, and looked back to Mikey.

“Where the hell have you been?” Mikey’s tone seemed rough as if he had been crying. Gerard frowned even more at the sight, guilt rushing through his veins rather quickly for someone who wished to be mentally absent.

“Away,” Gerard said blandly. “But I’m back now.” Mikey’s eyes shot up quickly and fiercely, Gerard could tell that he was starting to get angry. He didn’t want to yell in a cemetery. He didn’t want Mikey to be mad at him. Gerard gulped loudly, shifting his weight between his feet, while his eyes roamed around everywhere but his brother. “I’m sorry,” Gerard whispered, thinking that his words were swept away by the soft wind. But Mikey had caught that, and his anger retreated to a frown, which the older brother could clearly see out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ve been through shit, Gerard. On my own.” Mikey began, twiddling his fingers. Gerard suddenly became very quiet, he was worried that his brother would never forgive him for that, it certainly looked like it, but Gerard had hope. Mikey could hold grudges. Mikey wasn’t thirteen anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Gerard whispered again. The wind picked up a bit, but the young man still heard the words. Mikey didn’t want to be hearing them, he didn’t want to see Gerard there at all. But he missed his older brother, he missed how they used to laugh, even if that had been a long time ago. Mikey missed his _only_ brother, his only friend, but that love seemed unrequited, and that hurt a lot. And watching Gerard fidget on his feet while standing on the same ground in which Elena was buried made Mikey realize that none of it mattered. All that mattered was that Gerard was here now, and everything would start in a better direction. That was what Mikey wanted. He was willing to swallow his pride to get that.

“Did you know that I tried to overdose on painkillers once?” Mikey asked out of the blue. He wanted to find out whether Gerard knew but chose to ignore it, or if he didn’t know at all, because waking up in a scary hospital room all on your own was something that Mikey wished for no one.

“I didn’t.” Gerard swallowed his words shamefully, unable to keep a straight face. His expression jumped from concerned to worried, then he realized that it must’ve been a while ago, and his worries would’ve only bothered him if he undug his brother’s secrets now. Gerard didn’t want to be bothered either. But he had no idea why Mikey had been on painkillers, to begin with. He wasn’t going to ask, but it was obviously concerning.

Mikey was eyeing his older brother while the other stared past him, and into the distance. The young boy could see the unhealed wounds in his eyes, how he was suffering in ways that one could understand. What was there to suffer about, people would ask. Relatives died, descendants moved on. Gerard was supposed to be able to move on just like everyone else, they said. But Gerard didn’t and they had to deal with it. 

Mikey felt bad for his brother. He thought that he shouldn't have, but he did. He didn’t want them to fight their wars alone. He wanted them to be happy together. To find comfort in each other. Mikey frowned as he stared at Gerard. Mikey frowned all the time now.   
He needed a hug. He so desperately needed to be held, it didn’t matter by whom. His feet picked him up inadequately, earning Gerard’s concerned attention. Gerard was waiting to be yelled at, slapped maybe, so he was extremely surprised when Mikey’s snake-like arms wrapped around his waist. He was surprised when Mikey buried his head in the crook of Gerard’s neck and started sniffling again. Gerard was then surprised when his own hand went to caress the young man’s sleek hair in a means of comfort. He was surprised, but he welcomed it, and he hugged back. 

So they stayed like that for a few minutes, feeling as if hours were passing. Both had cramping backs, both felt miserable without one another. They were upset, Mikey was crying, although he would’ve never admitted so, and Gerard really wanted to cry. He _really_ wanted to cry. But he didn’t, and that said a lot about everything going on in his head.   
Once Mikey pulled away, he looked into Gerard’s eyes quite closely. He was evaluating them, trying to depict what his brother was like since he’d never properly met him when he had been young. Gerard stared back into Mikey’s dark eyes, confused and a little afraid, but the young man found none of that in Gerard’s gaze. Gerard’s eyes looked strong. Beautiful and strong. 

“Are you hungry?” Mikey asked, snapping his brother out of his carefree state. The truth was that yes, Gerard was hungry. He had hardly eaten anything at all anymore, he ran purely on coffee. That probably wasn’t good for his liver or his heart, but again, caring was too expensive for someone like the old man. 

“I could eat.” Gerard shrugged. It was surprising that Mikey had just forgiven him, maybe he didn’t, but it sure as hell felt like what desperate people called a _blank slate_. Mikey nodded in return, and started in the direction of his car, Gerard close behind him. The young man’s plan was to catch up, to learn about one another as if for the first time. Mikey wanted to know everything, as strange as it sounded. Gerard had nothing to tell, he hardly wanted to _hear_ what his brother had been up to.

They approached the parking lot, Mikey’s gaze shifted between the two cars, and how the hell they were going to drive to a nearby diner. He turned to Gerard, who looked carefree and ignorant, a moody teenager who had never gotten used to his hormones. “How are we driving?”

Gerard blinked, it took him a moment to register what the other was referring to, his gaze also began to shift between the two vehicles. “In separate cars,” Gerard said blandly. “Where are we driving?”

Mikey thought for a moment, his eyes lingering on the gravel beneath them uneventfully. “The diner we went to on my twelfth birthday?” He suggested, skeptical as to whether or not Gerard actually remembered where the hell that was. Gerard didn’t, unsurprisingly. And it was written all over his face. Mikey frowned again, contemplating on what to do. “Then meet me at our house. Leave your car there, and I’ll drive us.” 

Gerard nodded, and they stepped into their own cars and drove out of the cemetery. Gerard didn’t know if he wanted to reunite himself with his brother. He was never an affectionate person, it was difficult for him to be so. He knew that Mikey was alive, that was enough. Gerard could go another seven years without uttering a word to anyone.   
Mikey was driving in front. The old family car was rusted, the bumper was falling off, hanging by what looked like a thread. Gerard wondered when his parents had the time to crash it. He then considered the fact that maybe Mikey had crashed, and those painkillers were for a broken bone or something. The thought sent shivers down his spine, but he ignored it for the most part. 

Minutes passed by. Gerard was behind Mikey, his foot resting impatiently on the brake at an intersection. He needed a cigarette very badly. He craved its fumes. It made him forget. But then, he remembered Elena, and how she had kept convincing him to drop that dirty habit. Recently, Gerard had been remembering a lot of things that were useless.  
Mikey turned left. Gerard didn’t. Gerard hardly remembered what the house they were going to looked like. Mikey sped away in the correct direction, Gerard drove forward with ignorance. He completely forgot everything suddenly. He didn’t want to recall it.

The cars in the lane of the busy intersection were driving forward. A motorbike engine could be heard from Gerard’s left, but he didn’t acknowledge it. The light turned red, but Gerard kept driving, his foot firm on the gas pedal. The sound of the motorbike became louder in Gerard’s left ear, he kept driving. And then, it was like getting punched in the jaw, which had happened to Gerard before. But this time, he didn’t deliver a punch back. The seatbelt strained his neck as he was thrown to the side, and a faint noise of metal clanging together could be heard somewhere far away in the distance in Gerard’s head. His eyes then closed unwillingly, he saw nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Old Notes: I hope that some of you are enjoying this story so far! I don't know, my writing's strange, and this isn't my best chapter by far. All the schools I’ve been to have taught me nothing about grammar so I mess up with punctuation a lot. Please forgive me and I hope that you won’t stop reading the fic because of that. I really do love writing and I put so much emotion in it, I want to get better. Feel free to correct me in the comments! I'm also probably going to change the rating to mature because it's kind of a sad story. But no depressing end, I promise!


	3. Save Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard lives through the crash, but he thinks death would've been easier to handle.

His head pounded from the impact, an awful and repetitive noise running around in his head. He wanted to soothe it, he tried to move his hands, but nothing. Nothing would move. He blinked furiously, trying to get rid of everything that he was seeing; the distorted figures, the changing shapes, the flashing lights. It had gotten so bad that his hands found their way up to his eyes by themselves eventually, and he rubbed them up to the point where he saw colors on top of everything else. 

Gerard didn’t know what the hell had just happened. He was on his side, that was for sure. There was something cold against his head, something cold and sharp, he tried to feel it, but his limbs fell dead for the second time. He tried to twist his head, to do something, _anything_ , but his head was stiff, and he felt cold.

Gerard lay on his side, something hard pressing against the bones of his rib cage, and he vaguely felt his legs lock themselves under the steering wheel. The blurry shapes were starting to disappear from his vision, he blinked to finish them off for good. He had no idea where he was, or what just happened, but he had a feeling that it wasn’t good. 

When his eyes did finally see something, he was met with his car’s passenger seat. The black leather looked normal as usual, except for a bit of glass sparkling like sprinkles. Gerard didn’t know if it was his imagination, or if it was actually there. After a few moments, something like a hint of red also glowed on the crystal, Gerard realized what that crimson was, but its source was indefinite, Gerard felt fine. That is, until his head had an awful spasm, up to the point where his hand moved on its own to soothe it, and he groaned in pain. He groaned furiously, squeezing his eyes shut up to the point where tears swelled up. It was as if a knife was stabbed into his brain, dragged down the side of the head, left in there as his killer watched in pleasure. The eyes were screwed so shut, Gerard thought they were going to retreat into the socket, and his head pounded with even more force.

Thoughts were trying to seep through the pain, he was trying to figure out what the hell had happened. All that Gerard remembered were traffic lights, he must’ve been in a car accident. Some idiot must’ve driven into his car, and that idiot was going to pay. Gerard was in indescribable pain. 

And finally, he could see things. He shook his head slightly, trying to relieve himself of some discomfort, but that only made it worse, so ever so softly, he looked around. The windshield was whole, there were no cracks, there was no damage, the passenger window was whole as well. By the time Gerard had realized all of that, he started to feel the dull ache in his hip, which he thought was the joystick digging in. He sat upright, the seatbelt was still strapped into place, but he didn’t feel it against his chest. His head leaned back against the headrest, but something else dug into it. Gerard didn’t know what the hell was going on, or what the hell he was feeling. His hand went up to check what was bothering him behind his head, he found glass there. His brows furrowed in confusion, adding strain to the pain. He had no idea where the glass was coming from. 

His head unwillingly turned to the left, where the sun pierced his eyes. He realized there was no window there. There were cars, people standing and staring, watching as Gerard slowly came to his senses, he was glad that he was conscious enough to give a glare for their ignorance. They probably found it funny, they probably found themselves laughing at the crash, at his pain, taking pictures and posting them on every website there was. Gerard was not having a good day. 

His hand shook as he went to grab the steering wheel, feeling the leather to make sure that he was still alive, that everything was real. Dying by a large chunk of metal wasn’t as romantic as he’d hoped to go. Then, his hands shook their way to his seatbelt, unclasping it, and Gerard breathed in a whole breath of fresh air as if waking up for the first time when the pressure on his chest disappeared. He was unconscious of the fact that everything was putting such a strain on him _while_ he was conscious. That terrified him.

With closed eyes, Gerard tried to open his door, it wouldn’t budge at first, probably because it was somehow dented in, and he just wasn’t strong enough at the moment. He tried again, and nothing happened, so he leaned away from it, lifting his leg to kick it open, and after a few attempts, it fell lifelessly against the cement ground. His head was pounding as he stared at the ground, nothing seemed to be working properly. Gerard’s eyes were still blurred, his body shook even though it was still resting on the hard leather seat. 

He smelled something burning. Then, something trickled down the side of his face, a warm thick liquid that tickled the skin as it dripped down. Gerard raised a hand to feel it, but his fingers returned to his line of vision with blood, and he frowned at it, smearing the substance lazily between the digits. He was beginning to feel woozy, whatever the reason was, Gerard didn’t care. He wanted to find whomever he’d crashed into, either yell at them or apologize profusely if it wasn’t their fault.

The blood continued to pour down his head, but it was ignored as Gerard heaved his legs onto the pavement. His lungs inhaled a shaky breath, water filling up the hazel irises before he stood. It was as if the ground hadn’t been sturdy enough to hold him, his legs gave in, and he came tumbling down. His arm reached out to the roof of his car, fortunately for him catching it in time, and he hoisted himself up once again. 

The sunlight was far too bright even if there wasn’t any. Gerard was just seeing light, whether white or yellowish, he couldn’t tell. He definitely saw people, unless the impact on his head had been so forceful that it made him hallucinate. But he doubted they were figments of imaginations, Gerard would’ve been seeing much scarier-looking creatures in his head. Those people just stood there with bored expressions, Gerard gave himself more credit for his creativity. 

His leg tried to move, he _willed_ it to move, but for a few moments, nothing happened. He stared at the limb, looking insane and desperate at the same time as he silently fought with it, feeling as though someone had decided to scramble his brain by sticking a red hot poker up his nose. When he finally took his first step, he willed for another, and another, until it looked more or else like walking, probably less because he was still fumbling his steps. And then when his eyes had finally adjusted, what Gerard was seeing made him wish for hell because that would’ve been better. His heart had shattered into a million pieces, his blood ran cold, his head felt lighter than the smallest feather in the world. 

From what Gerard’s eyes could make out, there was a bike sticking out of his car. It looked shiny, the metal seemingly whole against the rusted passenger door of Gerard’s car. The front wheel was completely bent inwards, its sparkle reflecting the sun that didn’t exist in the sky, but Gerard would blame it all the same. His headache seemed to multiply by an infinite amount when he realized that there had once been _a biker_ mounted on the little seat, although where they were now was unknown to the man. 

Gerard stumbled past the dent in the car, pushing through the knives planted into his brain, of course. God, he felt like throwing up. He wanted his insides to turn inside out, he wanted to watch himself bleed out on the sidewalk, he just didn’t want to admit that it was probably his own fault, that this biker was injured, maybe even dead already. Gerard wanted to die instead of him, everything would’ve been so much easier. 

His breathing became shallower, the life and consciousness leaving him as he dragged his fading body to the other side of the car. Suddenly, he fell, unable to carry himself upright, unable to breathe at the same time. He dropped to the ground, the bones hit the cement with a thud. The pavement sure as hell was sturdy that time, and Gerard really wanted to die. He wanted it all to end. Everything that had happened before the crash was starting to come back to his spinning head, how he wasn’t concentrating, how he felt sorry for _himself_ when really, there were many more important things in life, like making sure this biker lived, or else Gerard had a dead body on his conscience. 

A dry cough escaped his lungs, coming out hoarsely and lifelessly like the rest of his body. He clutched his head, the impact against the ground sent too much disturbance, and he screwed his eyes shut to relieve himself in vain. A few moments later, Gerard recollected his limbs and decided to drag them toward the other side of his car rather than walk. The biker had probably flown over, Gerard had to see if they were all right, so his nails gripped the dented pavement until he reached the area of the trunk, passed it, and lay his eyes on the body. 

It was as if everyone else didn’t exist anymore. It was just him and this person whom he hurt, no one else bothered to do anything. Gerard couldn’t see the people, he didn’t want to see them, but they were there, and he knew. The seconds ticked by incredibly slowly as Gerard approached the biker. It looked like a man, someone with broad shoulders and a thick helmet on. He wasn’t bleeding actively, which Gerard was already grateful for that, but he was unconscious, Gerard didn’t like that. 

He had gotten very close to the person. Gerard dragged himself to lie practically right next to him, trying to figure out what the hell to do. The headache wasn’t getting any better, the more he moved, the more he felt like wishing he’d never woken up. But he had, and there must’ve been a reason for it, even if it was just to save this man’s life and nothing else, Gerard was eternally grateful that the world saw him worthy to live even for a moment.

The biker was rolled over to his side, so Gerard flipped him onto his back, and continue to inspect him. Gerard saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, he roamed his hands over the jacketed body to feel for broken bones, but when he got to the lower part, he saw that the man’s leg was not at all normal-looking. On the contrary, Gerard almost threw up just glancing at it. God, he felt terrible. Someone had broken a leg quite badly all because Gerard couldn’t tell apart fucking colors. He had been too busy moping about how much he missed someone, that he almost killed another person. The biker was breathing, Gerard thought. There was no way that he wasn’t. There was a steady rise-and-fall of his chest, the peace, and ignorance that came with sleep, Gerard was glad that he didn’t feel pain. Not yet, at least.

The shiny black helmet was reflecting too much light into Gerard’s already sensitive eyes, the biker was also possibly less inclined to breathe with it on, so Gerard reached and undid the clasp as best he could, and pulled off the plastic. He was met with a solemn face, someone who didn’t look like they worried too much in their life. The biker looked young, strong, and probably physically able to recover from something like this, and Gerard hoped for that with all of his life. 

The man’s lip was bleeding violently, Gerard didn’t know why that was unless there was a piercing of some kind, and he was able to see a tattoo of what looked like a scorpion crawling its way across his skin. Black hair clouded the man’s eyes, he didn’t look in pain, but Gerard couldn’t stand the sight either way.

God, Gerard realized that this man might die without an ambulance soon. His heart rate picked up as he clutched the man’s head to his chest, the pavement under them digging painfully into his hipbones. He wanted so desperately for this man to live, for this ebony-haired angel of a man to live. Gerard immediately felt that this had been a good person, he clutched onto his head for dear life, trying to constantly feel his breath as a signal. But there was no phone near him, no one seemed to care, and he couldn’t find the ability to walk. So what the hell was he going to do?

His insides churned painfully with fear, his breathing was short, and all of that added to the pain in his head. Gerard felt sick, he felt wrong, dirty, and that wasn’t because there was blood of his own dripping down his head. Gerard screamed out in pain, both physically and emotionally, for someone, _anyone_ to help them. He screamed out in agony, begging for aid, and wishing he hadn’t completely fucked up his familial relationship so that Mikey would’ve been here. Then, Gerard suddenly remembered Mikey. Was the young man all right? 

“Somebody call an ambulance! Mikey, where are you?!” He croaked. “Somebody find my brother!” Gerard was crying, and it hurt so much to do. His head was split open and pounding, seeing the biker did absolutely nothing to help, he only worried more. Gerard’s fingertips traced over the man’s clothing in fear as if letting go would’ve killed them both. Every few seconds he turned to the biker to see if he was breathing, then to the leg, and he realized too late that there was a pool of blood gathering under the bone. Gerard’s breathing hitched, this man was going to die, he thought. Gerard was going to be sent to jail for all of eternity with a charge of manslaughter. And even if it wasn’t _all_ of eternity, he would’ve kept himself in his own prison. His mind never would’ve let him go.

Instantly, the images that Gerard was seeing started to spin. His head held a warm feeling, but every other body part felt like ice. He wanted to stay awake, but the sweet idea of sleep lulled him closer and closer to the vulnerable state of unconsciousness. His fingers twitched as he held onto the man’s jacket, his eyes were slowly closing, the streets were disappearing. His body was yelling at him to stay awake, his conscience pleaded for him to force his eyes open, but to no avail. Everything was disappearing, everything was fading. And the people did nothing.

God, Gerard hated people. 

Yet somehow, someone had been kind enough to call an ambulance, and before Gerard fell completely still by the biker’s side, his eyes were seeing beautifully lit colors. Those colors were blending in his mind, accompanied by an ear-piercing sound, but Gerard fell right to sleep anyway.

***

Waking up with a pounding headache was not the best way to open his eyes. Gerard felt a duller ache in his head than before, but it still cut through its side like a wildfire. He groaned out loud, a white light trying to peer through his eyelids which he began to hate with a burning passion. A faint beep of machinery added onto Gerard’s unhealthy mental state. He winced with every noise it made, and it eventually brought him out of the peaceful rest that he’d been too tired not to enjoy. His eyes fluttered open, and all he was met with, was a bleak-looking hospital room. Even though Gerard had gazed around the room with one eye, he was surprised to hear another voice near him. At first, it came as a soft whisper, gradually rising as Gerard neglected to answer it. It had, at one point, become so painful, that Gerard turned his head quickly to glare at this person who wasn’t letting him rest before he was met with his brother. Mikey looked like the definition of shit while sitting on that ghastly visiting chair by the bed. No, Mikey looked quite worse, actually.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Gerard had completely disregarded whatever his brother had been saying, he didn’t care about it too much, the pain in his head being a little too unbearable. Mikey glared at him, silence finally coming from him as he stared at the older man. His brows furrowed together, the change in shape letting Gerard see the worry lines that had formed long ago, and their tired shadows casting themselves uninvitedly. 

Mikey looked like he was thinking. He looked like he was thinking about what to say and how to act because Gerard was obviously hurt, but he also looked angry because of Gerard’s constant ignorance. Eventually, Mikey’s face relaxed a bit, the worry lines un-creasing themselves, and he sighed, lowering his gaze to his lap. “Do you remember what happened?”

Gerard pondered that for a moment. Was there something he’d been forgetting? Waking up in a hospital wasn’t exactly unfamiliar, but it was always unpleasant. He would never get used to the beep of the machinery in one ear, he never missed how it hurt one side of his head a little more than the other. But Gerard hadn’t even considered for a moment what the reason _that_ time might’ve been. Mikey looked just as void of worry and annoyed as he did every other time long ago, so what made this one so different? But Gerard didn’t remember being unhealthily unhappy before he woke up there, he didn’t remember wanting to swallow all of his brother’s antidepressants either. 

Gerard's eyes shifted to the side of the room as he opened his mouth to speak, stopping short from the lack of thought and words. His gaze then started to run around, which pushed is headache further into his brain, but he didn’t care. He really wanted to remember what the hell had been going on. The noise of the machinery was _really_ starting to piss him off then, but the noise was affecting a part of his forehead rather than his actual brain. Gerard wondered briefly why that was, before reaching a hand up to feel the ache in the skin. 

There were stitches or something like that. Gerard had never actually gotten stitches. Whenever he was conscious, he had never let anything poke through his skin. There was a bit of dried blood on his fingertips when he looked at them, and he remembered how he had smeared his blood between them. There were flashing lights in that memory, so Gerard remembered the car, his lack of focus. Then he remembered the biker. His blood ran incredibly cold. Everything froze in his mind, the machine didn’t annoy him anymore. He could see Mikey’s satisfied face when the other saw that no explaining was necessary, that Gerard had remembered it all on his own.

Gerard’s head jolted to the side, he saw stars from how fast it’d happened. He glared at Mikey’s amused expression, hating how the other found it incredibly funny that he was suffering in multiple ways. God, Gerard wanted to punch his smug face in, but then he would’ve felt guilty, and Gerard didn’t have the energy to do so, so he pushed that thought out of his head. “Is he alive?” Gerard asked quickly.

“Yes, he is.” Mikey’s gaze faltered for a moment. Gerard could see something strange in his brother’s eyes, how they changed so incredibly fast, but Gerard said nothing. He only peacefully waited for something else to be added since Mikey expression suggested that. “His leg’s broken. You broke his leg.”

Gerard huffed, frowning as he shifted his gaze to his legs. “Is he awake?” He asked, watching Mikey’s eyes shot up, the young man’s demeanor changing again, Gerard was beginning to worry what the hell was really going on. 

“Yes.”

“Is he mad?” Gerard cocked his brow up, purposely asking his brother more questions because it looked like it bothered him. Gerard loved to bother his brother before he realized that he had so much shit to deal with after he got out of that ghastly room, so all the ‘excitement’ just floated away. 

Mikey flashed his brother a small smile in sympathy, he knew how Gerard hated when someone was angry with him. The truth was though, that Mikey hadn’t gone to see the biker, no one did actually; no one was there to visit the poor guy. Gerard was going to be the first one, Mikey thought. Gerard was too kind not to check up on him (if he was the same Gerard Mikey had known seven years ago, he wasn’t exactly sure), maybe even get him flowers to apologize if the man enjoyed that sort of thing. “I don’t know.”

Gerard huffed again, enjoying the way his back was cuddled against the soft sheets. There was a warmth that soothed him. He thought that if he focused on it, he would’ve felt better, he would’ve forgotten about everything for a while. His eyes fluttered shut out of fatigue, the pain in his head too stubborn to subside, and Mikey stared at him in confusion. The younger man wanted to know what was going on in his brother’s head, but his expression showed nothing; Gerard looked empty.

Suddenly, Gerard’s back became too warm. He felt the prickle of sweat build up, how it started to soak through the fabrics. Maybe it was psychological, maybe it wasn’t really happening, but it felt real enough to Gerard, so slowly, he repositioned his hands on either side of his exhausted body, and pushed himself up to sitting. Instantly, the pain in his head reached an unbearable level, he collapsed against the heat of the cotton immediately, earning even more pain. Mikey stared with amusement as Gerard mumbled curses at the machine for making such an annoying noise. Gerard hated everything. 

The pillow made a soft sound, filling Gerard’s ears with far better noise than he was hearing otherwise. Really, it was quite bothersome, up to the point where Gerard wanted to unstitch the stripes on his forehead and find his way to the brain so he could put an end to it. And really, he threw that pillow at his brother when a venomous snicker came from his direction. “How dare you laugh at me?”

The younger man’s snicker only grew like fire then, the pillow missed by an incredible distance, and he retrieved it for his brother, placing it mockingly just a bit out of Gerard’s reach. “Give it back!” Gerard said, unamused.

“But you threw it at me!” Mikey pushed it lazily toward the man, watching as it was slowly tipping off the bed near Gerard’s knee. Gerard glanced at him momentarily, having wanted to give an equally venomous glare, before his head spasmed a little too violently, and he turned away to elsewhere. He gave up on the pillow, letting his head fall against the sheets with care because it seemed like the slightest interference and there would’ve been a cognitive wildfire. He groaned, rubbing his eyes cautiously as he willed everyone and everything away. 

When he did open his eyes, Mikey’s smirk was gone. That much Gerard could see out of the corner of his eye. But there was no direct eye contact, the old man was much too tired to make any effort, especially when Mikey seemed to live without putting much effort in, himself. That was probably untrue, Gerard thought. Mikey had been through quite a bit, most of which Gerard probably didn’t know, but he didn’t care either. His reason for ignorance _this_ time, was the piercing headache. 

Gerard’s gaze roamed around the room. There was a window. It probably led to the parking lot below or another street, but Gerard could only see the sky. It was gray, full of clouds, it looked, but Gerard felt at peace, the usual weather of November comforted him. Mikey changed his look to a disappointed one, it seemed. A corner of his mouth twitched upwards, as if in disgust, and his brows stayed neutral as always. Everybody said this: ‘Mikey’s a rock’, and it was true but it bothered Gerard. People just simply restated facts too often. 

“Do you want something for your head?” The strange pitch of the young man was heard through the existent and nonexistent noises in Gerard’s head, he turned to gaze at him with much effort, yet he was disappointed with Mikey’s expression. Mikey just disappointed frequently. “I shouldn’t,” Gerard answered. He thought that maybe his brother had once taken something like that OxyContin for that possible broken bone, although Gerard knew of none. Maybe Mikey had just taken antidepressants a little too often. Maybe one day he felt shitty even with three in his stomach, so maybe he took some more. Gerard shivered. He didn’t want that for himself, and he most certainly did not want that for his brother. Mikey continued. “If it hurts bad, then take one. You won’t feel a difference.” 

Gerard frowned, one was probably never enough. Those pills were extremely addictive, doctors didn’t give just _one_ , they gave a bottle. Gerard was probably going to finish that bottle, and then die from opiate overdose. He wouldn’t’ve let his brother know that, but it would’ve happened, and it would’ve been too late for anyone to stop him. “I’d say there’s quite a difference. The pain will stop, won’t it?” Gerard mocked. Well, Mikey agreed. Besides, Gerard was thinking about meeting this person he’d injured. Maybe he would borrow one of his painkillers. He decided against it.

“His name’s Frank,” Mikey spoke again, catching Gerard’s attention. Gerard stared skeptically at his brother, at least what was seen of him through the unnecessarily large frame of the bed. There was no change in emotion, Gerard didn’t know why he bothered to look every time. At least Mikey had stopped talking about painkillers, or else Gerard would’ve given in soon. Nobody wanted that.

“I don’t care,” Gerard said simply. It was like every other bland thing in the world. A name. It held no significance, people never remembered Gerard’s name, they never remembered anything about him. This Frank, however, was someone who had a broken leg because Gerard hadn’t stopped on a red light, but no one in their right mind drove a motorbike in November. Not unless they were _looking_ for something like a broken leg. Well, Frank found one, didn’t he? But Gerard was too far gone in his headache to recall a feeble name like Frank. Frank sounded feeble, god, Gerard hardly remembered what his face looked like. Gerard hardly remembered what his own face looked like. It was a strange feeling he had now, very different from the one when he actually crashed. Gerard had felt scared, leaned over a cooling body with the faint image of blood, crystal, and destroyed metal. But now, Gerard was unafraid. He was in too much pain to be afraid. Pain made him reckless, and he liked that feeling.

Frank was bland. What else did Gerard remember? Gerard was far too lost in thought about the biker to seem like he didn’t care. Frank had black hair, a nice tattoo, and very nice eyebrows. Gerard had always paid extra attention to eyebrows, he liked his far too much to admit that others’ were better. Frank’s lip had been bleeding, Gerard wondered how that could’ve been if he’d worn a helmet. There was a lip piercing, there had to be, Gerard was becoming too interested, he realized. He also realized that he was remembering Frank’s name. That wasn’t good.

“You should,” Mikey said. Gerard didn’t know what the hell he was referring to, the previous conversation ended quite a bit ago compared to the speed of his thoughts, but Mikey didn’t know that. On the contrary, Mikey’s thoughts flew by at the speed of snails compared to his brother’s. That was why the young man was far more mentally stable.

Gerard just eyed him, confused but carefree. The only thing that was being focused on was the fact that there was too much head pain. And the fact that he couldn’t get the image of a bleeding Frank out of his head. He felt guilty, he really did. It was starting to sink in now that he was waking up more and more, but people who showed that they cared were often walked all over on. Gerard liked himself without the image of dirty footprints. But as he lay there, he came to a conclusion. Elena would’ve never wanted him to be careless as a defense mechanism. And Gerard loved Elena far too much to ignore what she would’ve wanted. “I’d like to see him.”

Mikey quirked a brow up; the most expression Gerard had seen in the past few minutes. “I disagree.” He said blandly, and crossed his legs, watching Gerard roll his eyes for the infinite time since they’d become brothers. 

“Please, do elaborate.”

“It’s your funeral.” Mikey rolled his eyes, ignoring his brother’s question for an explanation. Gerard scoffed, immediately regretting it because his head throbbed more forcefully suddenly. He also wasn’t bothered by Mikey’s words, Gerard had his funeral a long time ago, but he supposed that Mikey didn’t know that. Mikey was waiting for a physical burial, Gerard was fine with that. He’d make Mikey wait. Mikey was patient. “Seems that it is then,” Gerard answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment, please? Tell me how I'm doing.


	4. You Can't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard has a seizure(?) and Frank thinks it's his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment! I'd like to know how I'm doing! Or else it's not really that fun to write without people telling you what they think.

The hallway was very bleak, anyone would’ve agreed. Nurses and doctors alike were unhappy to be doing their job, but one would’ve guessed that things were like that in Belleville. Gerard hadn’t seen that hospital hallway before, maybe he didn’t remember it, but it looked different. Mikey, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by any such thing that his brother was worried about, his only goal was to escort the other to his ‘funeral’, in this case, Frank’s room. Gerard liked funerals for some reason. 

The old man had hardly gotten off of his bed, the doctors did end up offering painkillers. Mikey had watched Gerard’s reaction to their proposition, Gerard had thought it about for quite some time. Mikey could’ve played a few rounds of poker during those minutes if he knew how. 

Gerard had taken _one_. They offered him a full-bottle prescription, but he took one pill. It was enough, although it really wasn’t. Gerard knew that he would’ve felt worse after withdrawing from the fancy drug, but he was really finding it hard to care. And Mikey definitely disregarded everything that was going on. So with particular distaste, Gerard eyed his younger brother as they rode down in the elevator. 

“You need a shower,” Mikey said unnecessarily and rudely. He didn’t want to look at the old man near him, who was standing with a displeased expression on his face. Through the mirror of the equally bleak elevator, Mikey saw how Gerard looked without needing to gaze directly at him, which he was eternally grateful for. Gerard looked like shit. It was worse shit than what Mikey looked like. The Way brothers seemed to have a habit of resembling shit, both agreed that the other was an exact copy of it. 

“I don’t like water.” 

“ _Water_ won’t be able to clean you anyway.”

Gerard glared daggers into Mikey’s back. He hated him quite a bit at that moment, but he couldn’t say it. If it was verbally spoken, it meant that the feelings were true, and Gerard wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. People said that children did mean things to their siblings, such as hitting them, stealing their lunch money, or calling their music a piece of shit. Gerard felt like a child because he really wanted to stomp his foot, then yell at Mikey, but both required an infinite amount of energy that he didn’t have. Mikey smirked. 

God, that elevator ride never seemed to end. Then the doors opened, and Gerard was proved wrong for the millionth time in his life. That just made him even angrier, and he would’ve stormed out of the small booth if it weren’t for the pounding headache. Instead, he followed his brother cautiously down the new hallway, the feeling of nausea creeping up on him suddenly. He really shouldn’t have been walking, the doctors said. But this Frank seemed…well, more exciting than a bed. Now he was really craving the warmth of the sheets though. 

Mikey stopped in front of some random door, Gerard couldn’t remember how long it took them to actually get there. But before Mikey could knock, move, or even breathe, Gerard’s hand went to grab at his brother’s arm. The young man looked at him, his other hand frozen halfway up to the wooden door. “What?”

Gerard cleared his throat. His grip on Mikey’s thin arm released, but he felt unsure, guilty maybe because the crash probably was his fault. Moreover, there was no one in the visiting chairs outside of this Frank’s room, Gerard hoped that there would be someone inside. But there was something bothering his head. Among all the jokes, the remorse, self-loathing, and other very fun things, Gerard was in pain. He wasn’t feeling well at all and started to wonder whether something was wrong in his head. Something _actually_ wrong. He’d had concussions before, but this felt worse. Gerard’s vision began to blur. “Did they say what was wrong with me?”

Mikey rolled his eyes, letting his floating hand go limp, Gerard then heard the noise as it hit Mikey’s waist, but he couldn't see it. “That’s what you’re worried about? There is someone in there with a broken leg – which is _your_ fault, by the way – and you’re worried about a headache?”

“No, I just – before we go in, tell me what the hell happened.” Gerard gazed at the floor, seeing only Mikey’s shoes, but the young man didn’t seem to mind any of that. It felt like he was looking at Gerard, bothered, but he sat down in the nearby chair anyway, and pulled Gerard down with him.

“You weren’t behind me. That what I noticed first.” Mikey began, staring at a spot on the floor. Gerard didn’t like where this was going, there were people listening as well even though they tried to make it seem like they were doing something productive. Gerard saw right through them, though. He would’ve seen more, but his eyes were starting to water. 

“Then I heard a crash, and everything just…stopped.” The young man sighed. “Everything.” Gerard gulped loudly, his head turning to look at the wooden door where the biker was probably laying in pain, but he turned back after it hurt his head too much. “I turned back and saw you. In your car. You were out completely, a bike dented less than half a meter away from you. I had no idea what to do. It looked fucking scary to me, Gerard.” Mikey turned to his brother, a fearful gaze peered through from his eyes. Gerard stared back with a similar expression, he was afraid of hearing what had happened to him when he wasn’t conscious, how the biker flew over, and the crack of bones that echoed in the distance. Gerard didn’t want any of that. “It was scary to me because I realized just how fucking close that bike was to you. If you took half a second longer to drive, he would’ve rammed into your door, and there’s no way you would’ve lived. That’s what fucking scared the absolute living shit out of me. How the fuck can someone just stop existing in the span of one fucking second? Like how can life just stop, like a fucking candle when you spill water on it?” Mikey’s voice cracked. His leg was bouncing up and down, it was bothering Gerard’s headache, but he said nothing. The young man rubbed his face furiously as he tried to recollect himself. Gerard swallowed again. The painkillers were doing nothing, there was no high, there was no relief or escape. He was stuck, sitting there and waiting for his brother to finish telling him how bad he had fucked up. Gerard felt like he was going to throw up.

“By the time I got there, the biker was already on the other side. All I could see was you, and how miserable you looked. It took me a while, but I called an ambulance. And by the time I did that, I -,” Mikey’s voice got quiet all of a sudden, Gerard could sense something else that was rare for his brother. Mikey hardly cried, the old man had only seen tears a few times, he heard them often at night, but seldom saw them. “I saw you _drag_ yourself to the biker’s body, and hug him like there was no fucking tomorrow. You were crying, there was blood, your car’s engine was catching fire for whatever fucking reason, and when you blacked out again, only then could I actually fucking get out of my car and walk to you.”

Gerard wanted to fucking kill himself. He could imagine Mikey instead of him. His stomach turned inside out, vomit was going to spill, but somehow, he contained it. The image of Mikey, however, laying on the ground covered in blood was enough to give him a breakdown. He could never live with himself if anything like that happened. The crash had happened to Gerard, and he was glad for it. Out of desperation of physical comfort, he grabbed Mikey’s hand and gave it a hopeful squeeze to stabilize them both. “What happened to my car?”

Mikey grunted, tracing his thumb over his brother’s knuckle, but then, suddenly, he let go, and left Gerard’s hand in the cold. The rest of his body followed the low temperature soon after, and he shivered slightly, trying not to think of throwing up. Mikey spoke, “I couldn’t save it. There was nothing to save.” 

That didn’t matter. Gerard just wanted to know for the sake of knowing. He didn’t care about that car, he didn’t care that it was his home for a while, or how Elena said she loved it when Gerard first got it for his sixteenth birthday. He was just glad that everyone was alive, he’d give a few cars to save a person. 

On top of that, Gerard was seeing stars. His head was spinning, woozy, and unstable, the image of a stomach turning inside out seemed like a need at the moment. But he stood anyway, thinking that Mikey would’ve gotten annoyed if he ran to the bathroom instead of this biker’s room. Gerard had already forgotten his name. But he knocked, all the same, seeing how Mikey glanced up at him from the chair, and Gerard swallowed down the sudden excess of saliva in his mouth. With no response heard from the inside of the room, Gerard pushed the door open. 

There was that person, laying in the hospital bed with his leg in a cast, and instead of some fancy-looking leather jacket, the biker had on a regular hospital gown. Gerard thought it made him look less intimidating, but then he realized he was also wearing one. The memory of the crash was faded, Gerard didn’t remember all of it, he would not have recognized the victim’s face if asked to, but the scorpion tattoo was unmistakable. It peered out of the ugly blue gown, crawling its way up the raven-haired’s olive skin. 

Gerard glanced at the biker’s face. It was cut a bit, especially around the jaw, bits of dried blood were still visible, and his nose was bruised. Gerard gulped for the millionth time in the span of those five minutes, staring at the strange hazel eyes that stared back. Frank’s lip that had been bleeding now had a hole under it. There was no doubt a piercing there, and Gerard realized that he remembered the biker’s name. Everything was happening too fast.

The look of remorse was probably written all over the old man’s face as his gaze jumped between the cast and the face because Frank was the one to start speaking. “Can I help you?”

Gerard jumped at his voice, realizing that he was the only one in the room when he turned his head in frantic. Mikey had left, that son-of-a-bitch, and Gerard’s head began to throb, so his hands went to sooth it by instinct. He winced in pain, his knees beginning to wobble from his weight, and he softly cried out in pain. Then, Frank understood who the hell he was. 

Gerard panted quietly, his eyes weakly searching for somewhere to sit and rest, they landed on a chair, so with effort, he carried himself near Frank’s bed. After a few moments, he was able to make eye contact with that hazel again. Their gazes met, a wave of terror rushed through Gerard, and he spoke with all of the courage he ever had. “I uh, don’t know where to begin.” He chuckled dryly. Frank did not look amused.

Frank looked very unhappy actually. It was radiating off of him and making Gerard uneasy, so he cleared his throat to relieve the awkwardness, wondering where the hell his brother was. But Frank sighed, and lowered his gaze elsewhere, leaving Gerard to fidget mentally because physically, he couldn’t. Frank asked, “Did I hurt you?”

Gerard was surprised but didn’t want to show it. He didn’t want to apologize, he felt too proud to do such a thing. Frank looked fine. Gerard hated himself for remembering that boringly plain name. “I – I don’t think so.”

Frank huffed, looking unrelieved. “I’m Frank.”

“Gerard.”

There came no reaction out of the biker. It was as if he didn’t care, that speaking to Gerard was a waste of his time. If people would not have known Gerard as the amazing person he truly was, they would’ve thought the same thing. That Gerard was never going to make it anywhere. That he was awkward and could lose some weight. That he was a nerd, worthy of the many slurs that children thought were cool to use. Frank thought that Gerard was some junkie who really wasn’t supposed to be _near_ a vehicle, let alone driving one. Gerard looked green mixed with a pasty white, partly from the horrible fluorescent lights in that hospital room, partly because he felt like shit. It was Frank’s first impression of the older man. It wasn’t a good one. 

“I uh, I wanted to apologize,” Gerard began, breathing heavily as his body sank lower into the visiting chair. He was clueless. Why the hell had he even come in there, to begin with? To be publicly humiliated for crashing? He had been curious, but none of that was worth it now, it felt.

Frank cocked a brow up. The biker was staring into space somewhere in front of him, his gaze lightyears away from Gerard’s direction. One ear was hearing a high-pitched voice, the other a high-pitched machine, and he hated both. He was waiting for someone to come into that room and take him away. But he knew that no one would. 

“I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” Gerard continued. “I uh, I’ll pay for everything.” That was what people usually said in these scenarios, right? Gerard didn’t have a clue. But he didn’t see Frank’s reaction, his head was spinning, the room was running around in endless circles. He felt sweat build up on the back of his neck, how it trickled down his spine, and he shivered, stumbling on his next words. Those next words never came out. He couldn’t speak anymore, for opening his mouth to do anything other than throw up was impossible. There was a gallon of saliva in his mouth, he couldn’t swallow all of it. 

Gerard’s life was turning into a movie scene at the moment. He suddenly couldn’t hear anything being spoken, it was all becoming a blur. He was breathing heavily, a heartbeat thumping in his ears louder than anything he had ever heard. His hands gripped the armrests, the knuckles turned white, and he desperately prayed for either death or relief because this in-between was killing him.

Frank, however, kept his gaze firmly locked the front door, imagining as someone walked in, and hugged him, kissed him, and told him that they loved him. He was completely out of it. And sure, he wasn’t mad at Gerard before, but he was sure as hell mad now because his only chance of getting away from it all, of finding someone was taken away from him. He was stuck in a hospital room with a broken leg instead of being on his bike and becoming a somebody far away from Jersey. 

Frank was fuming. His mouth opened and he felt like screaming, crying, and punching this idiot where it hurt the most. He wanted to make Gerard feel like he had when everything was taken away. He wanted to make Gerard suffer because his own pain was becoming too much, but he couldn’t yell about it. He couldn’t make a scene so instead, he settled for words. “You stupid motherfucker. You deserve to burn in hell.” Through gritted teeth, Frank had uttered his emotions. The bones scraped together so harshly that it hurt. It was a sin to say that. Frank was catholic. 

Yes, Frank was a little catholic boy, raised in a little catholic family, going to church every Sunday morning with his mom who believed that it was important. Regardless, Frank clenched his fists, _really_ wanting to punch this Gerard in the face, but when he turned to do so, Gerard wasn’t punching material.

The older man hadn’t heard what curses the biker muttered in his direction, but Frank was sure that he had. The latter realized that Gerard looked like he was near death at the moment, actually, a truly pathetic sight to look at, but Frank regretted his choice of words. And although Gerard _was_ probably injured in the crash, that being the cause of his current look, Frank couldn’t help but think that he had made Gerard feel like shit all the more. Humans were only human. If the universe wanted Frank to be responsible for breaking someone’s leg, he would’ve been.

Oh, Frank was starting to feel awful. It looked like Gerard couldn’t breathe. The truth was, Gerard wasn’t breathing. He didn’t want to throw up, even an excess of oxygen would’ve caused that. He felt that Frank already hated him, spilling his insides on the floor wouldn’t have gotten him onto the guy’s good side. 

But Gerard couldn’t take it anymore. He was stubborn and wasn’t going to let himself throw up, but it was becoming harder and harder to do so. Something had to be changed. Gerard had to do _something_ to take his mind off of it. So he stood very suddenly. His legs used an excessive amount of energy, his hands were sweating and white from grasping the armrests too harshly. But that had been too much for him. Gerard’s knees gave in, they wobbled weakly before he fell to the floor, and passed out, seeing and feeling nothing. The body hit the floor with a thud while Frank watched with horror.

Frank wanted to yell for help, but he couldn’t. He clutched His voice was gone, his throat too dry. And it was fine for a second. Frank had time to think. 

That was until Gerard started throwing up. He was unconscious, but vomit was coming out of him. His body was twitching violently, it looked like he was choking on it. It looked like he was having a seizure. Frank’s breathing stopped entirely. It was nothing like he had ever seen. He couldn't move because of his broken leg, and Gerard was going to die from his own body fluids, his body jerking as he unconsciously fought back for air. 

That was it. Frank screamed.

Instantly, Mikey opened the door, thinking that maybe Gerard had hit him or something, or even that Frank hit Gerard, considering that the scream was too girly to seem like the biker. But it was Frank, surprisingly, because Gerard was on the floor near death. Mikey stood for a second in the doorway before he ran to his brother, and flipped him over so that the old man could stop choking. A few nurses rushed in, then doctors, then Gerard was being rolled away on a gurney back to his room, leaving Mikey to stand, covered in something he’d rather not know the source of.

Mikey was breathing heavily, not bothering to acknowledge Frank whatsoever, but he couldn’t move from his spot on the floor. It looked like there had been blood in the mix of fluids that Gerard threw up. It looked like he’d coughed up blood. Frank saw it, Mikey saw it, the doctors would have seen it if they looked. It was obvious, but that didn’t make anyone feel any better. Sometimes, it was better not to know some things. People would argue otherwise, but Mikey didn’t want to know. And Frank felt terrible.

Frank had the image of Gerard burned into his head forever. He had looked lifeless, seconds away from choking to death on a dirty hospital floor. Frank screwed his eyes shut, but the image was there, and suddenly, his broken leg felt like nothing compared to dying. It was a bone, it would heal. Lungs? Less likely so. 

When Frank opened his eyes, Mikey was staring at him from his spot on the floor. The younger brother was crouched over the fluid remains, his body hunching in an uncomfortable way that looked like it was the least of his worries. Frank gulped down a pile of worry and shame, trying to find the voice to speak, but nothing came out. 

Mikey narrowed his eyes at him. Frank looked guilty, but it was just fear. The young man thought that he had said something to his brother, maybe had even been the cause for that seizure-similar reaction. He glared at him, Frank only swallowed, and Mikey watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. The young man clicked his tongue, a sigh escaping his lips as he stood, staring into Frank’s eyes.

Mikey shifted his gaze at the mess on the floor. It was starting to smell, but neither of the two was capable of realizing it. God, it made Mikey’s insides churn. His stomach dropped. He wanted his brother. He wanted the version of his brother from seven years ago. And yet, the young man only had today’s version, the one that time existed with. Mikey had to be there for the current version, he knew, but it was difficult. He wanted to escape into the past. 

With a heavy heart, Mikey looked back to Frank, regretting ever wanting to drag his brother to that diner. This never would’ve happened. Mikey cleared his throat. “Um, I’ll get a janitor in here or something to clean the mess.” And with that, the young man awkwardly waved at the biker and his broken leg and left the room without a second thought.

Frank was left on that bed, alone, unloved, and now, with a terrifying image burned into his brain. There was a pain in his chest, almost stopping him from breathing. And it hurt. A lot. Frank couldn't help but feel that this was partly his fault.


	5. Crucify Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank loses faith, Gerard finds it, and Mikey is unimpressed with them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely love the lyrics in that BMTH song. Also, what the hell is the past tense of 'sweat'? Is it 'sweated'? Because I wrote 'sweated'.

“A head injury?” The words sounded foreign. It was as if the person who’d voiced had no idea that he was doing so. And the words sounded simple enough. There were worse things for a doctor to tell you in a hospital. Gerard echoed the doctor’s voice monotonously, staring into whatever the hell her eyes were colored as. And maybe he was beginning to panic just a bit too early because the woman assured him that it wasn’t life-threatening or anything. Sure, it wasn’t. Doctors always said things like that, but maybe the condition _was_ too much to handle. The real question was whether the _emotions_ would kill Gerard, and then, one supposed, and only then, was the condition life-threatening.

Nevertheless, Gerard paid no attention to the doctor’s explanations, encouragements, recommendations, do’s and don’ts’s. She started with the hand waving that he expected as always, but hated, Mikey’s emotions being similar. The woman explained what it was, what the abbreviation for Gerard’s specific injury was, and other useless bullshit that he didn’t need to know and was definitely going to forget. Mikey listened considerately, on the other hand, knowing that his brother was a recklessly proud and ignorant asshole in moments like those.

 _“Nothing life-threatening.”_ There those words came again. Gerard absolutely despised this doctor, he wanted to throw her out the window, but then the birds would’ve suffered, and he liked birds. He buried his face in his hands, the hospital bed dipping to the side as Mikey sat near him. The headache wasn’t going away, there was something wrong with him, but he had refused any tests. Nothing was going to shove him into a chamber with lights and sounds that were like the beginning of a horror movie. He would get too claustrophobic, he would panic. But mostly, he just didn’t care enough.

“You may have trouble doing things, though.” The doctor said, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. It was almost as if the woman wasn’t really a doctor at all, simply someone who had a class presentation on the functions of the brain, and considering the fact that she had given him the pill that made him faint in the first place, it wouldn’t have been surprising if she wasn’t. Gerard raised his head to listen to her anyway. “Like what?” He asked.

The doctor looked at the older man. She fancied him. She’d be a fool not to, but it was distracting her, so it took her a few moments before she could speak. “Thinking rationally could be difficult. It’s best if people use simpler words with you and avoid sarcasm. You might have trouble focusing, remembering things. You might feel slowed down, so to speak.” She shrugged softly, Gerard was really questioning her medical degree at that point. He stiffened visibly, a shiver running down his spine as Mikey’s hand caressed his back. “Then there are the physical symptoms.” She continued, “Headaches, nausea, dizziness, you might faint again. And there are emotional symptoms like irritability, sadness, you might become more emotional.” A giggle could be heard from Mikey’s direction, so Gerard turned to look at him with a curious expression. “What?” The older man asked his brother. Mikey shook his head, trying to contain his laughter, but Gerard insisted. Again Mikey refused to say anything, so Gerard smacked him on the arm.

“So _nothing’s_ going to change, then?” Mikey laughed out loud, earning a genuine but small smile from Gerard. The older brother took Mikey into a brief hug, inhaling his smell as if to remember it. Really, Gerard only thought that he wasn't going to see Mikey for another seven years. 

Now, Gerard had no idea about what happened with him in Frank’s room. That was why the two brothers were laughing at the moment. As far as Gerard knew, he had just fainted, and Mikey didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise. That was why Gerard was sitting there, and smiling at his brother. Mikey had figured that none of it mattered, that the young man would deal with everything Frank wanted. He wouldn’t let his brother into his room again since he had realized that Frank had looked incredibly guilty, whatever his reason. Gerard, of course, upon learning that he didn’t have to see the biker again, had no objections.

The doctor smiled at them both and prescribed Percocet, some fancy drug that patients got addicted to more than it helped. Gerard stared at the piece of paper the woman had handed to him, his eyes going over her awful-looking writing. Apparently, if he took enough of this drug, it would kill him. So he had a way out that would look perfectly accidental; an addiction rather than a deliberate suicide. That made his mind wander.

The doctor left. It was official, Gerard was more than welcome to check out of the hospital in a few hours, by the end of the day. They’d keep him there until the results of the new tests they’d taken came in, and he was perfectly content with all of that.

Mikey patted his back, letting him lie onto the sheets that had cooled off significantly to an unpleasant temperature, then left to meet with Frank. Gerard was left alone in his room, staring at the strangely flat hospital ceiling. There was peace for a moment. Gerard was alone, no one was trying to talk to him, his headache wasn’t pounding as wildly as before. He was resting finally.

As if on cue, as soon as Gerard closed his eyes, a phone rang. It was the kind of noise that forced his eyes open and kept them open as he continued to stare at the ceiling in confusion. He hadn’t even thought about his phone for a second since the crash. And now it was killing his ears.

Gerard sat up, gazing around the room for the noise. It was coming from a pile of his stuff that Mikey had saved from the car, and as much as he wanted to ignore it, it was incredibly irritating. So dragging his body out of the bed, he answered the phone that somehow still wasn't entirely dead.

And Gerard had pressed the wrong button because his boss was currently in the middle of firing him. It was totally fine though because he hated that job and it hated him. He had hardly done any work for it, supposedly there were a few doodles to his name, and now that it was officially gone, he didn’t mind.

And so Gerard stared at the peeling wallpaper in front of him, his half-cracked phone in hand, wishing that this man would’ve stopped screaming into his ear. The boss didn’t actually seem to care about what had happened to him, Gerard didn’t have the energy to go into details, so he nodded even though no one could see it, and accepted his fate without so much as a quiet whimper of objection. A job was nothing in life. It should’ve been nothing, at least. Money was paper that wouldn’t have saved humanity in the end. But Gerard needed money for cigarettes.

Suddenly, he had that craving for nicotine. It was probably a _very_ bad idea, especially with his head injury, but life was short, Gerard would’ve died soon anyway from climate change, and this fucker was yelling into his ear.

Gerard hung up without a second thought, interrupting the noise in his ear, and threw the phone back down onto the ground. He began to dig through the pile of stuff and found the pack of cigarettes that were miraculously still alive. So he grabbed one, grabbed the old lighter, and sat himself down on the window sill of the hospital room, enjoying the way the smoke twirled around in the November sky.

Gerard didn’t need anyone else in life. 

***

Frank had nightmares the night before. They were scary, but nothing that he wasn’t used to, which was sad to think about. Apparently, the only way you could survive was by getting used to your demons. Frank was very used to his. But the images from the night before lingered in his head, so when there came a knock on his door, he jumped slightly, which sent a jolt of pain through his leg. And when the person came in, Frank’s leg throbbed with pain that was probably mostly mental rather than physical.

Mikey stood in the doorway for a few moments, debating whether or not _he_ should’ve even been seeing the biker because Frank probably hated his and his brother’s guts. But Mikey stepped into the room, and quietly closed the door behind him. Silence greeted the room immediately, so Frank took that as an opportunity to ask something that had been bugging him since the day before.

“Is he alive?”

Mikey was puzzled for a second, so he stayed in the doorway awkwardly, trying to figure to what the hell was going on with this person. Mikey asked himself whether Frank had hit his head as well. How could a victim care about the person who’d hurt them? Most of the people in his life just didn’t work that way. “Uh, who?”

“Gerard.”

Mikey relaxed his posture in the doorway. There was something in the way Frank had said that. It was almost as if he actually cared about a person’s wellbeing. _Almost_. Nevertheless, it was unlikely to die from fainting _in_ a hospital, so on top of that, Mikey was beginning to think that Frank was stupid. “Uh, yeah? He’s fine.”

Frank nodded, gulping loudly. His eyes closed shut on their own from exhaustion, he was glad that this person didn’t die. But he saw the nightmarish figures from his sleep behind his eyelids, and they resembled Gerard. It was as if they were monsters of guilt. As if Frank hated Gerard for a rather overexaggerated reason. Frank silently begged for forgiveness. He was, after all, Catholic.

Mikey stared at Frank with genuine concern. No one had ever been worried about Gerard, even if Frank was just a nice person. Mikey didn’t like Frank. “Um, Frank?” Frank’s eyes shot up, the figures disappeared from his vision, instead, he was met with a similar outline of a brother. “Yeah?”

Mikey slowly walked toward the seat which Gerard had sat in the day before. He felt that there was some kind of feeling of his brother there, even though Gerard was upstairs, doing whatever Gerard did. Mikey had forgotten his brother’s personality. He sat himself down in the chair, Frank’s eyes watching him ever so carefully for some reason.

“Um, we should discuss payment.” Mikey suggested.

Frank didn’t know what the hell this conversation was going to be. Frank was a kid. He knew nothing about expenses and money. He didn’t have money. The only reason he was in the hospital was that his mom was paying the bill, even after what had happened between them. Mothers were mothers after all, even if they were Catholic. Even after what Frank had said to her. “I know nothing about that. I’m not insured.”

Mikey frowned, then opened his mouth to say something, but Frank cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Then what the hell am I doing here?” Mikey looked unhappy, but he wasn’t going to leave. If Frank wasn't going to talk about it, Mikey wasn't going to push, and maybe he wouldn't have to pay for Gerard's mistake since he doubted his brother had the money. And it looked like Frank wanted to talk about something else. But Frank seemed lost as if he didn’t know what words to begin with. So to wait for him, Mikey looked at the small window at the opposite end of the room. It was hot in there, Frank had probably sweated at night or something because the room smelled like body odor.

Mikey stood, and opened the window, poking his head to feel the cold November air. He could’ve sworn he saw smoke, then it hit his nose, and he smelled the nicotine that Gerard liked. It was a flavor that had been burned into his brain ever since Gerard had been seventeen. Now, he thought it would’ve been unreasonable to jump to conclusions that it was his brother smoking. Gerard was able to follow orders for his greater good, Mikey hoped.

But poking his head out the window, and tilting in the direction of the smell, he was proved terribly wrong. Gerard was sitting on the window sill of his room, and smoking without a care in the world. While Mikey envied that, he really wanted to fucking yell at his brother then and there, but he supposed it was his own fault for leaving the cigarettes there.

The young man then grumpily climbed into the room from out the window and turned to leave altogether, but a hardly audible noise from Frank left him standing in the doorway again. Frank looked like a child, sitting and pouting in his hospital bed with a cast on. He looked ridiculous, maybe because Mikey didn’t like him, but he doubted that there was anything _to_ like. Frank wasn't attractive to Mikey in the least. The man had bizarre eyebrows, a hole in his lip (that Mikey absolutely hated him for), and tattoos which Gerard was sure to freak out about if he saw them.

“I hope your brother’s alright,” Frank said quietly, earning Mikey’s dissatisfied stare. The young man stood straight, furrowing his brows at the boy in the bed. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Frank looked up from behind his eyelashes, his face becoming a warm color of red, and he chewed his nails. His other hand went to grab something around his neck that Mikey couldn’t see just yet. But a glow of a crucifix shined through eventually, Mikey was surprised that Frank was religious. “You believe?” The young man asked in the doorway.

Frank looked confused for a moment, but then his gaze shifted to what he was holding. He didn’t really know what to say. He was Catholic, he did believe, but he had been raised to. Frank didn’t know if he would’ve chosen this path on his own. To him, it seemed like too much of a commitment, and he had hardly committed to living in one house for twenty years. “I’ve been taught to.”

Mikey was intrigued. Personally, he never believed. His parents hadn’t forced it upon the two brothers, but it seemed like Gerard talked to Him once in a while. Maybe it was out of desperation, but if Gerard found comfort, Mikey was going to be open-minded. “What’s it like then, believing?”

Frank furrowed his brows, staring at the crucifix that had a bit of dried blood on it, he noticed. “It’s supposed to be reassuring, though I never chose it willingly.” He swallowed quietly. “But even the faithless believe in curses, and I cursed your brother yesterday.”

Mikey was definitely intrigued. He was curious, his concern for Gerard only floated away uneventfully, and he was left leaning against the pasty white wall in the doorway of the room. “What do you mean?”

“I said something that I shouldn't have. That's all I'll say." Frank shrugged it off with a wave of one hand, the other caressing the cross. 

Mikey was staring at him intensely, trying to figure out what had been said to his lame excuse for a brother. He felt like he needed to make Frank feel bad, as all humans did naturally. While that was the intent on one hand, one the other, Mikey just never believed that faith saved, that there was a Someone up in the sky, sitting and watching people fight each other like flies because he thought it was unbelievably cruel of them to do nothing to stop it. Where the hell was that Someone when Mikey needed them? That had led him to believe not in faith, but in the fact that peoples' _strength_ pulled them through their fucked up lives, or their weakness ended everything. "Faith is a waste of time." And he said exactly what he felt, walking out of the room 

Frank frowned at the closed door and frowned at the emptiness around him. He didn’t blame Mikey, unreligious people didn’t need to care about all that. Frank didn’t want to be religious. He wanted to be free. And maybe that was a sin, or maybe it wasn’t, but he would’ve taken a free life and hell later than a boring life and hell anyway because everyone knew that Frank Iero was going to hell.

Frank’s leg itched painfully under the thick cast, he felt sweat trickle down the side because of how poorly the doctors had put in on. That was medical care Jersey, but Frank didn’t mind. As much as he hated to admit it, he liked it there, he belonged there. So it hurt when some stranger insulted his beliefs that weren’t even his. A wave of anger rushed over Frank, he gripped the crucifix in his hand before sharply pulling it off from around him. It gave in easily with a click, and he held it in his hand as if in a debate, even though he knew exactly what he was going to do. Frank threw it away, with the intention of never being guilt-tripped or convinced to ever pick it up again. He threw it blindly, and it flew out the window Mikey had left open. Frank was most likely going to hell now.

***

“Who, in their right fucking mind, smokes after a concussion?” Mikey’s voice had snapped Gerard out of his dreamy haze, and he was met with an angry face, wishing that his date with cigarettes would have never ended. “You were supposed to take longer with that Frank, weren’t you?” Gerard asked, bringing the second stick to his lips.

“I was, but he didn’t want to talk about anything,” Mikey said and sat himself down in the visiting chair. Gerard hoped that his brother had dropped the cigarette protest for good because he was aching to have another. Nevertheless, victims weren’t supposed to just _forgive_. All the people who were victims in accidents that Gerard knew (granted he didn't that many) always said that they wanted the money. Frank wasn’t supposed to not want it. That confused Gerard, but he stared outside into the gray of the ugly world anyway, wishing that his mind would have just cleared itself of all its pain. “What do you mean he didn’t want to talk about anything?”

“Said he wasn’t insured, said he didn’t know anything about insurance, and then said he didn’t want to talk about it.” Mikey sighed. Gerard could feel his brother’s shrug even though he didn’t see it. He wondered briefly where Frank was at the moment, what he was thinking with his broken leg. Gerard watched as his pretty smoke twirled in the air, how it polluted the earth, and he absolutely adored it. He was addicted, he was in love, cigarettes were going to kill him, he didn’t want to go any other way. The pleasure and serenity of nicotine seemed irreplaceable, nothing else calmed Gerard, nothing ever had, he doubted anything ever would.

When only silence greeted the younger brother, Mikey cleared his throat, earning a look of utter disgust from Gerard. It was written all over Mikey's face how dissatisfied he was with the cigarette, and how he was waiting for an answer, but Gerard wanted nothing of it. “Piss off.”

Mikey groaned out loud, smelling a large amount of smoke coming from the direction of his older brother. And with more silence, the young man rushed to Gerard and quickly took the cigarette from his hands. It was flaming a bit between his fingers as they stared each other down, Gerard wanting nothing more than to smoke the rest of the pack on purpose. “Go take a walk in the _fresh_ air, would you?” Mikey spat, watching as Gerard grumpily scrambled off the window sill, and got dressed into his clothes.

The smoke was tickling Mikey’s nostrils as the cigarette stayed between his fingers, he watched Gerard slip on his jacket and walk out of the room without a word. The younger brother was left in the empty hospital room that reeked of nicotine, a perfectly good cancer stick in his hands that was probably the cause of half of the patients in the building with lung problems. He flicked it out the window with disgust, a scolding look on his face as he picked up a book, and began to enjoy the absence of his older brother that he was so used to.

Gerard stepped out of the building, the cold wind rushing through him immediately, and he shivered violently. Out of caution, he walked around the building, hopefully out of Mikey’s potential view from his hospital room, and found a bench. He sat on it, admiring the dying tree in front of him, and the sound of ambulances ringing through his ears.

And Gerard had been smart. The pack of smokes was in that jacket, he searched for it, and lit up the third stick, bringing to his lips. He began to enjoy his life again, the pleasurable feeling running immediately through his veins. His eyes ran between everything in his view, until they landed on something shiny in the snow. It was bothering Gerard, buried somewhere in the ground in front of him, so he picked it up.

It was a crucifix, Gerard wondered why someone had left it there. It was pretty, looked rich in divinity, Gerard was intrigued. It had blood on it, his nails scraped against it a bit as his gaze roamed over it, and its necklace shined in his hands. Something was telling him that it was special. Something told him that it held power, could lead him forward in his life. The Way family was never religious, but Gerard had found comfort in faith, and he had faith now. And very easily, the necklace slipped around his neck, his slender fingers going up to clutch the cross with all he had. If he was worthy, he thought, the Lord would save him. The Lord saved everybody.

Gerard glanced up at the sky. _He’ll save me if I’m worth saving._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And The Used is a highly underrated band. And I absolutely love Bert. Does the religion aspect of the story bother anyone? Should I do longer updates?


	6. For the Monsters in our Beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one in which Gerard finds respect for Frank and Frank finds respect for Gerard. Also, Mikey now shares his name with a mouse from a corporate company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than usual because I didn't know where to end it, then somebody dumped me (it's been a grEat week). I update more frequently than a lot of creators anyway which is strange, but then again, what is socializing when you can fantasize about band members. I hope you know that I have a total of about two friends as well.

“For fuck’s sake.”

The crutches weren’t helping. Frank couldn’t walk with them, his arms wobbled pathetically as he tried moving. There were arms around him, they were holding him up uncomfortably, he desperately willed them away. But they only tightened when Frank almost tripped, and after a few minutes, Frank was considering never walking again as long as they weren’t touching him.

The doctor was supporting him very hands-on, per se. She was trying to get him to move forward and had been for a while now, Frank was waiting for her to be called in for an emergency because he could not take any more of it. The woman didn’t even look like a doctor, she didn’t work as a doctor, Frank was going to make _her_ see a doctor if she wasn’t going to stop. 

It wasn’t supposed to be that hard. But Frank’s arms were weak and sore from the plastic, and he was really fucking pissed off at that lady, so he lightly pushed the woman away. She stumbled back a bit before shooting Frank a look, and _finally_ , he thought, she looked like a real doctor. And she was acting professionally, a common medical frown on her face while her arms were crossed, and she stared at him as if with disappointment. “I’m just trying to help.” 

Frank really didn’t believe her. Instead, he believed she was there with him because he was good-looking, maybe he was even a little cocky about it, but the woman was so unbelievably transparent that it was like looking through glass. He frowned at her, and eventually, she left him alone. God, Frank realized how much he liked the tranquility of an _empty_ hospital room.

New Jersey, in general, was populated heavily, but not like other warmer, more exquisite states. And Frank wasn’t originally from Belleville either. It was a complicated scenario with him, and he hadn’t planned to stop here, but it seemed that this place was going to be his home for a while. Frank had no money, he had no bike, he had nowhere to go. And standing in the middle of a shitty hospital room, in some shitty part of the state, with shitty excuses for people around wasn’t the best idea of a future. Hell, the shitty excuse for a person named Gerard had hardly come into his room. And even if Frank still felt mildly concerned about how he was doing after his episode, Gerard had hardly said anything to him, had hardly _apologized_ ; moreover, Gerard had sent his brother to do so instead. Frank didn’t like Gerard at all, and it wasn’t like he was actually in love with him or something and just in denial like romance novels would suggest, no, he really just didn’t like him. Frank didn’t like Gerard because Gerard lacked human decency or so it seemed. And Frank just really didn’t like people. 

Frank huffed to himself and decided that he wanted a cigarette. So he threw a jacket over his shoulders and heaved himself out of the room and out of the hospital. He really hoped that there were cigarettes left in his pack because he hadn’t smoked for a while, and he wasn’t supposed to start again. There was a saxophone laying back home that he had picked up out of interest, and unfortunately, you couldn’t play it if you smoked. But one couldn’t hurt, could it?

The cold air had hit him like a rock. He trotted through the snow, spotting a bench in front of another one Belleville’s infamous dying trees, but there was someone on it. Frank didn’t see who it was, nor did he care, there was space for him, and that was what mattered. But when he approached the person, he really regretted everything, including the stupid cigarettes, and wondered whether it would’ve been weird just to trot away in the opposite direction. 

Gerard wasn’t surprised, he just eyed the stranger up and down, before turning away to stare at that dying tree again. There was a cigarette between his fingers that Frank had just noticed, and the ache for one returned to Frank’s body. The younger man cleared his throat, Gerard was confused for a moment, but he scooted across the seat to leave more space because that was what he thought Frank wanted. 

Gerard had smoked about five cigarettes up until then. He had lost count, but each one was being finished more slowly because he didn’t want anymore, though his hands kept pulling for one. And he did feel disgusting, furthermore afraid of how quickly his brain was going stop functioning, but Gerard had thought about it, and he realized that he had nothing to live for. So he finished that one and pulled out another. 

Frank looked utterly disgusted as he stood over him, something that Gerard could see clearly out of the corner of his eye. The younger man didn’t know how many sticks Gerard had smoked, but there was an unmistakable smell of nicotine coming from his direction. It was thick as if he had just gone through a pack or two. With a frown on his face, Frank decided that he was too lazy to switch benches, so he sat down, and started to fumble for his own cigarettes when he realized that his lighter was empty. If he wanted a smoke, he would have to borrow Gerard’s and that wasn’t exactly his favorite option. 

But Frank really wanted a cigarette, and Gerard smelled _really good_. So Frank cleared his throat and turned to the walking cloud of nicotine. “Can I borrow your lighter?” Instantly, Gerard snapped his head to the side, eyeing Frank suspiciously as if people weren’t supposed to talk. In all honesty, Gerard was just afraid that Frank would want to start a conversation or talk about how big of an asshole driver Gerard had been, and the older man really didn’t want that. So he gave him the old, dying lighter, his nose soon finding a different nicotine scent. Old cigarettes. Gerard instantly knew that Frank hadn’t smoked those in a long time. 

Frank handed him the lighter back, blowing smoke rings into the air. He didn’t inhale the smoke, just kept it in his mouth and puffed it out. And he didn’t know what else to do except start a conversation. “How are you feeling after what happened?”

Gerard ignored him at first, but then he was puzzled because he didn’t know what Frank meant. “Fine?” He shrugged, mockingly. Frank furrowed his brows as they both stared at the dying tree in front of them. “Really? What did you have, then? A seizure?”

Gerard turned to him again, wanting nothing more than to walk away from all this, but Mikey wouldn’t have let him smoke cigarettes at all, let alone about _six_. And he was becoming afraid all of a sudden because he didn’t remember what had happened. Frank wouldn’t have lied, Gerard thought. They had been in the same room when it happened. Would Mikey have lied? If so, then cigarettes really weren’t a good idea. “Is that what happened? I don’t remember.” Gerard turned away out of despair, a sudden wave of nausea swooping over him from the nicotine.

“Yeah, you like fainted, and then started throwing up. It was fucking trippy.” Frank muttered with the cigarette between his lips. Gerard turned to look at him again, slightly annoyed that his loss of consciousness had been _trippy_. Trippy would have been a good word to describe a movie like Avatar, not Gerard choking on his own body fluids. He shuddered at that image.

Then, Gerard decided that The Matrix was more _trippy_ , and was going through other movies in his head that were _trippy-er_ , while Frank gawked at him in concern. To be fair, Gerard was staring at the tree in front of them, looking completely insane, so Frank cleared his throat to lift the silence. Then, he blew some more smoke rings that Gerard didn’t even know were possible with cigarettes. 

“So what’s your story?” Frank asked out of boredom, or so he had decided. It wasn’t like he was _interested_ in someone as boring as Gerard seemed to be, because Gerard seemed out of it, and, essentially, very boring. 

“My story?” Gerard asked. Frank hummed in response with his cigarette between his fingers as he stared at his cast, and Gerard decided that he should answer that question for the sake of not feeling guilty about it later. “I – there is no story.” Gerard shrugged. 

“Well you weren’t born yesterday, were you?” Frank asked, unamused. But with how much nicotine was in his brain, Gerard could’ve easily seen light for the first time _today_ instead. “My story, huh,” The older man echoed with a hazy sigh. 

Gerard didn’t know if there was a story. He had been out of it for the past seven years, he hardly remembered what day it was. It was tragic to everyone else, it would’ve been tragic to Frank, and Gerard didn’t want to go into details. “There is no story.”

Frank cocked a brow up. “Fine then. You’re boring as fuck.” And finally, because Gerard really didn’t know why it had lasted so long in the first place, Frank’s cigarette was on the ground, smashed and dragged across the pavement and the bottom of his shoe. Gerard hoped that he would leave now, but alas he wasn’t so lucky because Frank leaned back against the bench and stretched his arms out. Gerard wondered how the hell he wasn’t cold in a light jacket and a hospital gown, but maybe blowing some air in his direction would make him colder. So, being the smart man that he was, Gerard started to discreetly blow air out of the corner of his mouth at Frank, it was a wonder they were close enough to do so, but Frank started to stare at Gerard as if he was crazy. “The fuck are you doing?”

Gerard suddenly stopped blowing out air, instead pinched his lips together to close the small gap of his mouth. He then scooted a little further away from the Frank and pretended to be invested in that tree again. Frank just kept staring at him, his brows knitted together, and maybe it was because of the painkillers, but he wasn’t cold, and he didn’t even think about being so.

Gerard could feel Frank’s eyes on him, so he cleared his throat and began to speak. “So um, what’s your story then?” Frank’s strong gaze faltered slightly as if he was snapped out of a daydream, and he tried to focus on the question. “There is no story.” Frank blurted out without thinking. 

Gerard’s ears perked up visibly. “Interesting. We have so much in common.” Frank hummed in response. First of all, Gerard was still smoking and Frank was starting to wonder just how many cigarettes he had. Second of all, saying it like Frank was a pouty child that didn’t want to share during story time, offended him. Frank was twenty. He earnestly considered himself an adult. Frank shook his head. His teeth felt weird after the stick, but at least he hadn’t inhaled any of the smoke. That saxophone was going to be played. Maybe he could start a one-man marching band. “I’m a runaway.” He said softly to himself, almost as if he didn’t want Gerard to hear it.

But Gerard heard it. His heart rate rose slightly as a wave of excitement poured over him. He was intrigued because Frank had left someplace that he had called home, he had seen some part of the world that Gerard hadn’t. Gerard craved that feeling of no loose ends. No responsibilities, no people to consider. Oh, how Gerard wanted to be inconsiderate. How he wanted to spit in everyone’s faces. “What’s it like?”

Frank turned to him. “What? Running?”

“Running,” Gerard echoed in a whisper, their eyes locking together by an unbreakable bond, it seemed because neither of the two could look away.

Frank huffed scornfully. “It’s different.”

“Hm? Different how?”

“It’s freeing.”

Gerard looked at Frank with respect for the first time that day. A small smile spread across his lips at the thought of freedom, and he turned back to face the tree, Frank doing the same. The two men stared at that ugly tree, feeling worlds apart yet completely alike. They both craved freedom, they both wanted the same things. It was just their pride, their egos that stood in the way. Frank would never have admitted how much he wanted to be held. Gerard would never have admitted how much he wanted someone to hold.

But they said nothing, and instead stared at that dead fucking tree. 

 

***

 

Frank hadn’t seemed all too angry with him, Gerard thought. They had shared a lighter, something that Gerard considered too intimate for people who hated each other. They had shared a bench, and then Gerard had helped Frank stand on the crutches. He had watched Frank trot away in the opposite direction, the sixth cigarette between his fingers was forgotten, so naturally, it’d fallen to the ground where he stomped on it with ease. 

Back in his hospital room, Gerard was listening to Mikey go on about what doctors said he shouldn’t do. Drugs were one of those things, but Gerard was more pissed off at his brother for not telling him the truth about his episode than paying attention to how many cigarettes he shouldn’t have smoked. As he was packing up his stuff, Gerard frowned since Mikey couldn’t shut up for one fucking second about whatever the hell he was talking about, so the older man violently dropped the bag onto the floor. He was met with silence. 

“Did I have a seizure?” Gerard asked venomously, watching how Mikey’s demeanor shifted. The young man visibly stiffened, the arm holding the paper of do’s and don’ts falling limp against his side, and he stared at Gerard. “It wasn’t a seizure.”

Gerard walked up to him, then backed away, then started pacing back and forth across the room. His breathing became heavy, and with a pointed finger, he approached Mikey again. With that pointed finger, he walked away. And then approached him again. “You,” Gerard poked the finger into his brother’s shoulder, then paced around, and faced him once more. “You.”

“Gerard,” Mikey said sternly, “You reek of cigarettes.” Gerard groaned dramatically and kicked the pile of stuff on the floor that was supposed to be packed. Gerard was supposed to check out of the hospital and go home. But he felt like breaking a bone on purpose not to leave for just a few more days.

You see, Gerard had gotten his brother back, and he loved his brother, he truly did, but the sudden realization that they were on speaking terms again was far too big of a commitment for the older man. He felt overwhelmed because Mikey looked like he wanted to stay involved in Gerard’s life when Gerard was incapable of feeling the same way. In one simple sentence, Gerard just didn’t want to care. 

While he was in the middle of being about to say something snazzy, he suddenly felt as if a truck had run into his head at full speed. Gerard became dizzy, and fell onto the wall next to him for support, watching Mikey fade away into blurriness in his line of vision. He started to pant as if his lungs were shrinking in size, and he was trying to stabilize himself when he had an idea through the fire in his head. “Mikey, please, give me the painkiller.” He tried to say, although it had come out more like a hoarse whisper. 

And not a moment later was the bottle in his Gerard’s hands, he fumbled with it while leaning against the wall. For the life of him, he couldn’t get it open, he couldn’t take one out, so Mikey did it for him, and Gerard was breathing heavily as the pill slid down his throat. It didn’t help right away, of course, it didn’t. Gerard was in too much pain to think clearly, he couldn’t understand simple things, so he reached for the bottle again. But Mikey was holding it and didn’t let his brother take another one, no matter how much pain Gerard looked to be in. 

Gerard stumbled for the bottle again, but Mikey stepped back, watching as the older man was clutching his head with both hands now, his eyes screwed shut and his knees shaking under his weight. “Mikey, please, give me another one,” Gerard asked, trying to sound as sincere as possible so that his brother would have given him another pill. His head was pounding just as violently as a few days before when he first met Frank, and that was not a pleasant memory. 

Mikey didn’t come any closer but didn’t verbally oppose his brother, so Gerard took a step closer, and reached his hand out in pleading. Mikey didn’t seem to be moving, so Gerard reached forward, but Mikey had been further than he thought, and Gerard fell to the floor from the loss of balance. “Mikey, please, it hurts.” Gerard was on all fours, seeing only the ugly hospital cement underneath him, accompanied by Mikey’s muddy shoes. 

“No, Gerard. One is enough.” It sounded like Mikey had something against Gerard feeling better, and if it weren’t for the pain, Gerard would’ve been angry. Not that he wasn’t anyway. In all honesty, Mikey was following the orders on the bottle, how only one pill could be taken every few hours. And Mikey would’ve lied if he said Gerard’s pain wasn’t bringing him satisfaction. 

Gerard blacked out. 

 

***

 

There was that faint beep of machinery in his ear again. Oh, how he hated it so. And again, just like a few days before, Gerard was hearing voices. Whether in his head or real life, he was unsure, but one sounded like Mikey’s, the other like that bitch who called herself a doctor, so Gerard decided that he, unfortunately, hadn’t died yet. On top of that, he was probably still in that fucking hospital. 

There was a dull ache in his head, something that he thought was the painkiller’s doing. His eyes fluttered open slowly as he took a deep breath, and found himself in that ghastly bed of the familiar hospital room. 

Mikey was standing at the foot of the bed with the doctor, they both seemed to ignore Gerard’s shifting amongst the sheets. They were talking about something that made the woman smile, while Mikey seemed less irritated than usual. It was almost as if Mikey was happier without his brother being awake. And that thought made Gerard uneasy. 

Gerard began moving about on the bed, trying to get their attention, but nothing was happening. He whimpered pathetically, but they didn’t turn their heads to so much as _glance_ in his direction. It was this impending sense of claustrophobia of emotions that was swimming around Gerard, blocking his airway and stopping his breath. He gasped for air, but nothing happened. He just felt nothing move through his throat, nothing go into his lungs.

Mikey was standing, a smile had formed on his face moments ago as he stood with the doctor. They were both ignoring Gerard and his suffocation, which only scared him more, and shortened whatever supply of air he had left. Gerard was panicking, and he thought it was the end for him.

And then Gerard opened his eyes for real, the image of panic fading from his view. His chest was rising and falling quickly, but he was breathing as he lay on the bed like a rock. Breathing by himself. And Mikey was nearby, seemingly sleeping in the hospital chair next to him. His brother was right there. Gerard wasn’t alone. Now that he was laying there, awake for the most part, he thought that was what he had been afraid of most: being alone.

Turning your back on someone was so much easier to handle than someone turning theirs on you. 

Gerard’s headache was dull. He thanked the heavens for that, along with actually being alive, and not dead in a hospital bed, hooked up to a ventilator. He stared at the ceiling, his hand coming up to clutch the crucifix around his neck in silence as he focused on his inhalations and exhalations, afraid that if he would have forgotten about them, they would have stopped forever. And he was wrong about Mikey being asleep because there came a shuffling sound from the younger brother’s direction.

“Gerard? You awake?” Mikey asked in a hoarse whisper, his head leaned against the knuckles of his hand. Gerard was afraid to speak. There came this anxiety and sense of dread of making noise, but he couldn’t have left his brother hanging on a fucking question because his brother was not leaving him for anything less of that. So Gerard slowly turned his head, looking Mikey in the eye with fear, and blinked noticeably to let him know. Then Gerard’s gaze met the ceiling again. 

“Fuck,” Mikey whispered, shifting in his seat some more. “Fuck, Gerard. I was so fucking worried.” And even though Gerard wasn’t looking at him, the tone in Mikey’s voice alone made him want to cry, but he couldn’t because he was afraid of not being able to breathe. Gerard clutched the cross more violently until it was digging painfully into his palm.

“They almost attached you to a ventilator.” Mikey continued, probably to fill the silence out of his own anxiety. “You kept breathing so fucking weirdly, fuck. Like on and off. I couldn’t fucking-”

Gerard was trying desperately not to hear the story of his close dance with death, but Mikey stopped short on his own. It was terrifying, Gerard felt _terrified_. This feeling was a feeling he wished for no one, not even his worst enemy. Not even that fucking doctor because she may have been the one who’d saved his life.

But his breathing was becoming short because he was starting to panic again. It was for an unknown reason, but there was another overwhelming sense of dread that Gerard felt he had to let out, so his heart thumped faster, and his lungs contracted, and he was fidgeting in the sheets softly at first. The image of Mikey smiling and ignoring him ran through every inch of his brain, increasing his panicked movements more rapidly with every second. His back arched uncomfortably because he needed air, and it had gotten so bad, that Mikey rushed out of the room to get the nurse.

And one came.

Then another.

Then the doctor.

And Gerard was on the verge of screaming for death because he couldn’t take it anymore, but the nurses tried to calm him down. They tried to soothe his hysteria while Mikey watched him, seeing how his brother was crying and whimpering at first, then opening his mouth and yelling for help. Gerard’s mouth didn’t close as tears poured down his face, as the nurses held him down to the bed, as the doctor did something to him that Mikey couldn’t look at. 

Gerard threw his head back, his gaze staring at the ceiling intensely as half of his body came off the bed, only his hips being grounded by force from the countless of hands that were touching him. Gerard screamed, his face flushed with a crimson color, his head thrown back, because he didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him, and he didn’t know why there was something wrong in the first place. 

Gerard screamed for his grandmother, Elena’s figure suddenly popping up his line of vision as a hallucination of his wild imagination, and he continued to yell her name loud enough for the whole hospital to hear. 

Even Frank had heard it from his bed on the floor below them, his head snapping in its direction as he recognized the voice, but its reason unknown. The book from his hand fell as he silently regretted cursing Gerard in the first place. Instinctively, Frank’s hand went for the crucifix around his neck only to find that it wasn’t there, that he’d thrown it out the window because of a stupid, impulsive decision. And Frank regretted that as well while there came another scream from up above. Then silence.

Frank sat there like a rock, careful not to make a sound as he listened for any other noise coming from Gerard’s room. He became curious when nothing more could be heard. He wanted a peek at the man who had been screaming a girl’s name from the floor above. Everyone wanted a peek at the crazy man. Frank was insanely curious when the silence began to drag on. The static weighed heavily on his ears, and the book in his hands was forgotten as he stood, leaning feebly onto the crutches’ plastic. 

The hallway of his floor was filled with patients moving about for no reason other than to move, but there were hardly any nurses. Frank heaved himself to the elevator and found that it was strangely empty. But when he’d gotten to Gerard’s floor, there was a crowd of confused nurses that Frank hoped were there to help and not just to gawk at someone (presumably the insane man named Gerard) in room 747. Of course, they were trying to be discrete about it, but it made Frank frown all the same. 

Frank waited while the nurses left, while the small crowd disappeared, and leaned against the wall, then against his crutches, standing in the corner of the hallway and watching everyone with his dainty eyes. No one paid attention to him, and he paid no attention to anyone either, instead his curiosity left him staring at the closed door of Gerard’s room, presumably where Mickey (or whatever the hell his name was, since Frank couldn’t care enough to remember) was sitting and watching his brother scream for some girl.

Frank thought about how important that girl must have been to him, he thought she was an old girlfriend or something because people could apparently be so in love that they screamed out their name in the darkest of times. Frank didn’t understand that. He had never been in love, or at least so in love that their name would have left his lips as he begged for them to be near. Frank wondered briefly how that felt, to feel completely vulnerable with someone. He thought he had been vulnerable for twenty years of his life while he lived with his mother, he thought that _she_ had taken advantage of that vulnerability, and Frank was afraid of a stranger doing that. Frank just didn’t know that there wasn’t exactly a choice when it came to love, that he couldn’t choose when to submit to vulnerability. 

Some time had passed, and the halls were finally back to normal on the seventh floor of the hospital. Soon, Frank was staring at the closed door from across the hall, looking to be completely out of it and in his own daydreams. He didn’t even notice when a disheveled-looking Mikey (or as Frank knew him, Mickey,) stepped out of the room, and softly closed the door behind him. His gaze met Frank’s with confusion, but Frank didn’t register anything until Mikey approached him. “Frank?”

Frank’s head snapped itself awake, and he found himself leaning strangely against the wall and his crutches, so he stood straighter when he realized who was with him. ‘Mickey’ looked very tired, as if he had been sleeping, but waking up every few seconds in panic. Frank’s observation wasn’t entirely wrong. “Mickey,” Frank said, his eyes wide as he tried to focus. “How is he?”

Mikey seemed unfazed by the name even though he didn’t realize anything in the first place, he really wasn’t looking forward to speaking with Frank, but he supposed he had to with the crash and everything. All he had wanted was a cup of coffee. “Gerard’s fine, yeah.” He nodded absentmindedly. “You heard him scream, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Frank nodded. “The whole hospital heard him.”

Mikey furrowed his brows, fatigue unmistakably seeping through his expression, and he took a step back from Frank, looking close to falling unconscious from the lack of sleep. He waved his hand in front of Frank, clearly trying to say something, but he stuttered every time he opened his mouth. Instead, Mikey settled for shaking his head, his hand falling limp against his side as he soon gave up on that as well. “I just – I can’t deal with this right now. I don’t need your judgmental looks that tell me you think my brother is a fucking retard-”

“Whoa, hey.” Frank raised an arm up in defense, the other firmly holding a crutch as he watched Mikey pace around the empty hallway. His gaze followed the troubled young man, expecting to be either punched or yelled at because Mickey seemed to be on the verge of both options. “I just wanted to know how he’s doing.”

“Yeah, fucking right. Nobody likes me or my brother enough to care about how we’re fucking doing.” Mikey spat, stopping his pace in front of Gerard’s closed door. “Go fuck yourself.”

Frank frowned at him. “Let me see him.” 

Mikey’s gaze snapped up in fury, his eyes burning holes into Frank’s. His irises weren’t as pretty as irises could be, Frank thought. Mikey didn’t have the color or life in them. Frank had seen gorgeous eyes, Mikey didn’t have those. 

They argued about it. Frank kept pushing to see Gerard out of stubbornness, to prove that he didn’t just want to call Gerard a ‘retard’ as Mikey had said. And Mikey kept saying no to Frank, also mostly out of stubbornness. It wasn’t until a nurse walked by them with a cup of coffee in her hand that Mikey realized he wanted caffeine and nothing to do with Gerard for the next hour maybe, so he hesitantly let Frank in. 

Frank stood in the doorway for a few seconds after the door had closed behind him amidst the peace and tranquility of a hospital room. Gerard was sound asleep in the bed, heavily sedated and serene, his eyes beautifully closed, and his body tucked neatly under the covers. His chest rose up and down calmly, nothing but ease running through him, and his hair was dispersed messily across the hospital pillow, sweaty and greased from the _panic_. 

At least that was what Frank thought Gerard had: a panic attack. It was entirely plausible, considering Gerard’s mental state (that Frank had to imagine), his unmistakable love for cigarettes, and his rebellion against his brother. 

Frank didn’t know why he was in that room actually. That left him standing uncomfortably, thinking about what to do now he had seen Gerard like he wanted to. His dislike for the raven-haired man in the sheets was slowly fading after he had heard the screams and witnessed only glimpses of what was wrong with him. Maybe it wasn’t Gerard’s fault that he was kind of careless toward people. Gerard wasn’t mean. He wasn’t an asshole. Frank thought that maybe life had just made him like that. 

Actually, Gerard seemed nicer in his sleeping state. There was no eye-rolling, there were no cigarettes. Frank wondered if there had been a time when Gerard was a nice, caring person. And maybe he was, Frank had only known him for a few days after all. 

Frank wanted a closer peek at the crazy man in room 747. Everyone did, and Frank was no different. So out of curiosity, Frank stepped closer to the bed, scanning Gerard’s flushed but sleeping face, along with his long eyelashes and their elegance as they curved at the edges, covering the tear stains on his cheeks. Frank looked at Gerard’s small nose, how it matched his face with perfection and his soft lips which were slashed and torn from the screaming. 

As Frank’s gaze traveled lower across Gerard’s skin, he found the crucifix that he’d thrown out the window, lazily peaking out of the opening of the hospital gown. Frank was confused because he didn’t think anyone would ever have found it, let alone _Gerard_. On top of that, doctors, especially with a sensitive patient, took off jewelry, Frank thought. So someone had put it on when Gerard had already fallen asleep, and Frank could only think of Mickey. Frank smirked at that while staring at his crucifix around the stranger’s neck because Mikey had made it very clear that faith was _a waste of time_. Yet, in desperation, even the most unfaithful people often turned to faith for _any_ kind of comfort. This Mickey was no different. Humans were pathetically human. 

Something Gerard having an episode made Frank feel sympathy for him. Frank didn’t hate him, on the contrary, he respected him. Gerard had kindly listened to Frank’s story, he had helped him stand, he had given him a lighter. Now, Frank only felt pity for him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What it the ending? Anyway, more of Gerard suffering plus Frank backstory! Opinions?


	7. Cursed with Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one in which Gerard says something he’s hardly ever said to Mikey. 'Mickey' has plans for Frank but Frank absolutely hates his mousy ass.

Mikey’s coffee was unnecessarily hot. He had ended up going to a café outside of the building because apparently, the hospital’s coffee was only for staff. Mikey had been very upset about that, considering he spent about four dollars on a decent amount of caffeine. And now it was too hot to hold.

He had been going over scenarios in his head, trying to piece together what the hell was wrong with his brother because other than Gerard, Mikey had no life. At the age of twenty, he lived with his parents, they didn’t mind, but Mikey thought that they were only letting him do so because they didn’t want him turning into Gerard. Mikey appreciated their _concern_ , of course. 

But now, as he was rushing through the halls to get to room 747, expecting a crowd of nurses and doctors telling him that his brother was dead, he was only met with silence, almost as if there was no one on that level. When he opened the door, he found Frank, and instantly, the coffee fell from his hands. Mikey had forgotten completely about Frank’s existence, and now the four-dollar drink was on the floor, illuminated by the ugly fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway. 

And Mikey wasn’t happy.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Thankfully, there was a box of tissues next to the bed, so Mikey grabbed those and started cleaning up the mess of caffeine, but not before glaring in Frank’s direction. He picked up the cup in hope to save whatever amount there was left, but there was none, so he threw it out. 

Frank was sitting by the hospital bed, almost watching over Gerard, but not in a creepy way. And he had been there for quite some time, yet whenever he thought about leaving, the shine of the crucifix kept luring him in. Frank was fascinated by the fact that Gerard had found it. But when Mickey opened the door like a storm, Frank shot up in fear for probably the third time in that hospital while Gerard was still asleep.

“I – he,” Frank pointed to Gerard in a panic because really, Mikey did scare him. “I wanted to stay with him while you were gone.” It wasn’t a lie. Frank wanted to keep an eye on Gerard and his flimsy breathing behavior, plus it was really, very difficult for him to stand up.

Mikey squinted menacingly at the Frank, the tissue-covered coffee on the floor releasing an aroma that he would’ve killed for. Frank might’ve just been his victim as well. The younger brother slammed the door he had left open behind him, Frank jumped a bit at that as much as he tried to hide it. Even Gerard stirred a bit in his sleep at the noise, the sedatives wearing off, and the sounds waking him up, but neither of the other two noticed. Mikey was busy trying to kill Frank, and Frank was too busy being afraid.

“Why don’t you understand that I don’t want anyone seeing him right now? Just leave, please.” Mikey pinched the bridge of his nose, Frank could see how little energy he had, the bags under his eyes didn’t do justice. But Frank _didn’t_ understand, he only wanted to help people who needed it, and in his opinion, Mickey was only being a brat. What if something had happened to Gerard while he was gone? Frank thought with that logic.

“I just wanted to make sure that he was all right,” Frank said calmly, his understanding not coming to anything remotely close where Mikey wanted it. Frank didn’t have siblings, so he couldn’t be blamed, but _boy_ did Mikey want to blame somebody. “Just go,” Mikey sighed, his brows permanently knitted together, or so it seemed, in Frank’s opinion. 

In the midst of the arguing and the softness of the bed, Gerard’s eyes were slowly opening, but the rest of his body felt numb. It was a good kind of numb, the kind in which he felt nothing. There was no pain, he hadn’t dreamt of anything, there had been no nightmares. He briefly wondered why that was, but then he remembered. And he constantly regretted remembering things after waking up like this because there was never anything good that returned to his mind. And for the third time, he guessed, Gerard was hearing voices, he believed they were real enough. 

“But Mickey-” 

Now, there was something strange about that to Gerard. Mentally, his brows furrowed together because physically, the muscles didn’t seem to exist at the moment. He couldn’t remember whom that name belonged to, he knew no Mickeys, but he knew of an overrated mouse with that name. 

His hand twitched on top of the blankets, slowly becoming awake after the sedatives, and he kept his eyes open and firmly locked on the ceiling because if he was to close them, the distorted figures of his late grandmother would’ve come rushing in. And he finally came to a conclusion that Mikey was there because the following voice resembled an annoyingly lower pitch he had always competed with.

Gerard’s head slowly turned to the side, he vaguely saw an outline of a stranger that he had seen before, but their identity was faded. Next to the person, was Mikey, someone that Gerard definitely could not forget, no matter how hard he tried to. Everything seemed fine at first, except then Gerard saw that his brother was practically dragging this other person by their collar, and it looked like that person had a cast on. Gerard didn’t want them to feel pain. He wanted Mikey to stop hurting that person. But before he could say anything, he heard their voice again.

“Mickey, stop! You’re hurting me.”

Gerard recognized the voice along with an image of cigarettes and a dead tree, but he was going to think about that later. His hand rose weakly in an effort to distract Mikey when he realized that the person called his brother by a name that belonged to said overrated mouse. Oh, Gerard would never let Mikey forget that.

Fortunately, the subtle movement from the bed had caught Mikey’s eye. His grip loosened on Frank’s shirt, and then he let go entirely, his gaze not leaving his older brother. Frank, surprised by the sudden change of heart (or lack thereof), turned to the bed as well, and the room fell silent as the two waited in anticipation. 

It took Gerard a few moments before he found his voice, but when he did, there was only one thing on his mind that had to be said. “You called him Mickey?” Gerard smiled weakly, his voice coming out low and hoarse, worn out and drained from his screams. 

It took them a moment, but the two in the doorway finally understood what was happening, and in a split second, Mikey was by Gerard’s side, holding his hand as if it were that cup of coffee that he so craved, except he didn’t want it to spill this time. Frank, on the other hand, lingered in the doorway since his crutches were still next to his chair, so he tried to balance without hurting himself too much. 

“Oh my god, you cannot stay normal for one fucking second,” Mikey laughed out of desperation, clutching onto his brother bony fingers as he kneeled next to the bed and matched Gerard’s eye level. But Gerard wasn’t interested in his brother. Gerard was always taking him for granted. Instead, Gerard was interested in the stranger by the door, his gaze resting serenely on the peculiar man. He blinked, trying to remember his name.

Frank.

It was Frank.

“You didn’t smoke all of your cigarettes without me, did you?” Gerard asked quietly, ignoring the way Mikey’s head shot up in confusion out of the corner of his eye. 

Frank looked at him with just as much serenity, and debating whether or not he should leave so that Mikey wouldn’t make a scene, but he couldn’t, not with the way that Gerard was staring at him.

It looked like Gerard was desperate for something. And after having seen his own crucifix around the stranger’s neck, Frank started to warm to him. Now, Frank only saw someone whom he pitied. A weak and broken man in a hospital bed, with beautiful hazel eyes that stood out from under the raven hair. Frank wasn’t heartless. He knew when someone needed a friend. 

“I can’t smoke without your lighter, remember?” Frank smiled sadly, watching how Gerard’s eyes lit up. How Gerard smiled. Then, for only a moment, it seemed like they were the only two people in the world. Two sad people whom no one was judging or laughing at, two human beings who wanted something that they couldn’t understand yet. It wasn’t until Mikey cleared his throat that Gerard and Frank stopped looking at each other, shattering their hopeful reverie into tiny pieces as a sudden realization set in: they were nobodies, and they were always going to be nobodies. 

“I’m going to uh, get more coffee,” Mikey said, his gaze awkwardly roaming around the room before it settled on the door, and he stood. After a moment of thinking, Mikey grabbed the crutches near the chair and handed them to Frank before leaving the room altogether because the younger brother wasn’t heartless either. 

A few minutes of silence passed, in which Frank stood rested on the plastic under his arms, and Gerard stared at him curiously. Eventually, Frank moved to sit in the chair, Gerard’s gaze never leaving him, and as the young man was placing his crutches carefully against the chair, Gerard spoke. “I’m sorry.”

Frank stopped his movements, his gaze resting exactly where it had been as if he wasn’t sure of what had just been said to him. He felt a tingle on his neck in the area where the scorpion tattoo was, almost as if it was crawling up his skin. When Frank’s eyes finally met Gerard’s, there was something pleading in them instead. Their hazel was faded, their life was dull, Frank couldn’t help but feel sorry.

“For what?”

Gerard looked away, the dull hazel stuck staring at the ceiling again as he thought. He thought of Elena, for some reason, she was on his mind a lot recently. Maybe it was because her anniversary was coming up very soon, and he couldn’t help but constantly tell himself to bring her flowers. Maybe it was because he searched for her guidance, at the same time, approval, because she always knew what to do and how to help him. Gerard felt like a lost child without her, he felt alone because it was too quiet, and all the sun’s shine had disappeared. Gerard wondered if talking to someone like Frank was a good idea, and what Elena would’ve said about him, whether she would’ve thought he was a good influence on little Gee. He smiled, imagining her face as she said that he should stay away from Frank and his tattoos. 

As for Frank’s question, Gerard simply answered with one word. “Everything.”

***

“I’m begging you, please, try again.” 

Frank was on the verge of throwing a tantrum. They were kicking him out of the hospital. He couldn’t leave. He had nowhere else to go. The lady at the reception looked sincere, so she tried again and again, but the extended few days weren’t being paid for. In fact, they were being declined in payment. Frank’s mother wasn’t going to pay anymore. She really was a Catholic mother. 

There was a light, flickering in the corner of Frank’s eye. It was on the ceiling, a long fluorescent strand that no one seemed to notice except him. He was trying to ignore it, but it still flickered. And then, that light started to make everything blurry. It took Frank too long to realize that it wasn’t the light, he was crying. Frank was crying. He was so scared. He couldn’t live on the streets. He couldn’t be out there. He knew what happened. He knew what people were capable of.

“Sorry, sir. Extended stays must be prepaid here. If you want, I can send the bill to someone else.” And the lady did sound genuine. But there was no one out there to help Frank. So he solemnly shook his head and thanked the lady for her troubles. Slowly, he made his way back to the room that was expected to be empty by the end of the day. 

The door looked uglier than he remembered. When he opened it, everything appeared dull. There was a crack on the window that Frank hadn’t noticed before, the walls smelled, and the bed sheets were yellow. Yet, he sat on the bed, his face scrunching up in the most painful way as he started to cry. 

His hands were soaking wet, he wiped them ineffectively on the hospital gown. In doing so, he realized that the only reason he was wearing the stupid dress was that his pants didn’t fit over the cast. So on top of everything else, he would have to leave the hospital without fucking pants. 

Frank continued to cry.

***

Gerard was lying in his bed, bored out of his mind, actually. You see, he didn’t have to worry about paying for an extra few days, or wondering where he was going to live because Gerard had Mikey, who had their parents. It was so much simpler with him.

He had taken a painkiller, and he felt calmer with it. His head tilted to the side against the pillow as he stared at the ceiling again, simply because there was nowhere else he could look without putting in the effort. 

“Why is he like that?” A voice asked. It was Mikey, but Gerard didn’t listen.

“It’s the painkiller.” Another said. It sounded like a woman, but Gerard didn’t care

“So he’s high?”

Gerard didn’t hear the answer to that question. He wouldn’t have been surprised that the painkillers were serious drugs because that doctor didn’t know shit. Mikey thought that she was just poisoning him to get him back in the hospital, whether a business tactic or for personal reasons, it didn’t matter to him. 

Mikey was like a single father, at that point. He was taking care of a small child who couldn’t take care of himself. Gerard pursed his lips together as he continued to gawk upwards while Mikey stared at him with disappointment. “How long before he’s discharged?” 

“End of the day should be fine. He hasn’t shown any negative reactions to the drugs. Unless you’d like to extend your stay-”

“No,” Mikey said sternly. “What was that panic attack then, if not a reaction to the drugs?”

“Oh, that wasn’t because of the painkillers.” 

Mikey absolutely fucking hated her. Of course, his attack was because of the pills, what else would it be. The only thing that Mikey wanted was to get Gerard home and off those drugs because that surely would not end well. But while his older brother was out of it, Mikey thought it would’ve been fine if he went to buy coffee, since the hospital floor had drunk the last cup.

He stepped out, quietly closing the door behind him, and started for the entrance of the building. But as he waited for the elevator, he remembered Frank. Mikey had been too harsh with Frank, he knew. He thought that getting the man a cup of coffee was the least he could do. So he picked Frank’s floor instead.

When he opened the door to Frank’s room, most things were on the floor. The chairs were laying sideways, the bed sheets were messily thrown around. Mikey hovered in the doorway, unsure of what to do. 

Frank was standing by the window, his eyes puffy and red, his face stained with nothing but outlines of countless tears, and he didn’t so much as spare a glance in Mikey’s direction. Mikey closed the door behind him and walked into the room. “Frank.”

Frank vaguely acknowledged the man’s presence. He was thinking about how beautiful the trees looked this time of year. There was snow on them, Frank didn’t remember the last time it had snowed. He didn’t know whether he was already in the hospital when it fell, or if he had driven through icy roads before the crash, but he guessed it didn’t matter. He was going to be in that snow no matter when it had become winter. 

“Frank, are you all right?” Mikey approached him, seeing what state he was in, and didn’t say anything more. The young man doubted it was because of his leg, those things healed. Whatever this was, it was bad because he had been fine a few hours ago. He had been with Gerard then, comforting him right after the older man had woken up. But now, that lazy asshole was laying in bed, high out of his mind while Frank was crying. Mikey fucking hated his brother. “Frank.”

Frank turned his head to look at Mikey after he heard his name for the third time. It was becoming annoying because he didn’t like his name, it sounded too blunt as if people were trying to get it off their tongue as quickly as possible instead of savoring it. Gerard had a name that could be savored. Frank could say his name with emotion. “Hm?”

“Would you like some coffee?” Mikey suggested.

Frank looked away. “I can’t pay for it.”

“I’ll buy.”

And that was how the two ended up in the coffee shop around the block from the hospital, sitting in silence and drinking whatever shit was offered. Frank was silent, Mikey stared at him expectantly, but there came no conversation. So Mikey started one.

“What’s wrong?”

Frank glanced up at Mikey, then looked back down to his coffee. He didn’t know why he had accepted the free drink, he was sure that his mother would’ve disapproved of that. But she wasn’t there was she? Frank supposed that was his fault.

“Frank?”

Frank looked up again, this time holding the eye contact. He considered telling Mikey, maybe he would have been given a place to stay for a bit. After all, Frank wasn’t pressing charges for the leg, but he was owed something at least. “I’m getting kicked out of the hospital.”

Mikey furrowed his brows. “Kicked out? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No.”

Silence fell upon the two again with the rest of the people in the café murmuring to themselves and paying no attention to anything else. Frank took the opportunity to gaze outside, he watched as the people trod through the snow, dressed warmly in fur coats, all while he was sitting in his jacket and hospital dress with people looking at him as if he was a freak. Frank saw Mikey shift in the seat, how his hands came up to wrap around the cup on the table. Frank was jealous of him. He’d take a helpless brother over being homeless. 

“So then what?” Mikey asked.

“I've got nowhere to go.”

Mikey didn’t want to ask. There were things that people shared, there were things that they didn’t. Mikey didn’t want to make Frank share. But he had no idea how the hell to help. Gerard was the most important thing on his mind, but he didn’t know what to do with that either. Considering everything, Mikey wondered if he should offer someplace for Frank to stay. It was just that Mikey lived with his parents, so that was obviously not an option, and well, Gerard lived by himself but he was Gerard. 

Now that he thought about, Mikey could easily make Gerard sleep in the family car and let Frank have his apartment. Gerard fucking deserved it.

Frank seemed out of it. Mikey watched him as he stared out the window, gaping at whatever bikers were interested in. But the more Mikey eyed him, the more he saw Gerard inside. It was as if they were feeling the same things, going through the same emotions. Mikey tilted his head as if that would have helped him understand more, but he only earned a disapproved look from Frank. “What?” The biker asked bitterly.

Mikey hummed, squinting his eyes as he finalized his mental debate, and clicked his tongue. He then moved his gaze to the window, squinting in that direction instead and playing with his coffee cup. He heard Frank scoff. That was when he could’ve sworn that his brother was there instead. 

“What if I give you a place to stay until you get back on your feet?” Mikey suggested slyly, almost aiming to tease Frank with an opportunity for a roof over his head in the heart of winter. It made Frank scoff again, and it sounded so scornful that Mikey sharply moved his gaze back to him. 

“What if you don’t be such a dick about it?” Frank muttered to himself as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“I’m not being a dick about anything. It’s true. The offer stands.” Mikey shrugged without much emotion, avoiding Frank’s glare. 

Frank had no choice. “Where would I stay then?”

“With Gerard.”

Oh, Frank didn’t like that. He didn’t want to live with a baby for about six weeks until his leg healed. He didn’t want to take on responsibility for the wellbeing for little Gerard with his little tantrums and his little, yet awfully loud, screams for some girl whose name Frank couldn’t remember. So yes, he was being extremely ungrateful for something that had probably saved his life, and it was written all over his face. 

Without a doubt, Mikey noticed his expression. But the young man was enjoying himself, even letting a sly grin spread across his lips, because if Frank agreed, then he would have been making two assholes suffer, considering that Gerard wouldn’t have liked this either. 

But Frank had no choice. Frank had to agree. Oh, he had to agree, but he absolutely hated Mickey and Mickey’s fucking smirk when the other saw his frustration. And Frank was about to say something when Mikey opened his fucking mouth and another smirk poured in over his moving lips. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I was just thinking that you’d like a bed to sleep on, rather than snow.”

Frank was about a heartbeat away from throwing Mikey out the window and into the snow that Frank would really not sleep on. But he refrained because before he had been so rudely interrupted (even though Frank hadn’t been speaking yet), he was going to accept the offer. “Wipe away that fucking grin. I was going to agree.” It had sounded as if Frank was doing him a favor by staying with his brother, but in a way, he was because Mikey didn’t want to spend every day watching Gerard. And he had just killed two birds with one stone, something that he felt incredibly proud of.

Another smirk covered fuckin’ Mickey’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Barriers slaps. Revenge turned fifteen recently. I'm old. Real question: does Frank top? Or does Gerard?


	8. Headfirst for Halos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fun with Gerard begins.

“Gerard, wake up.” 

Gerard groaned, dragging the strange-smelling sheets over his head. Something then poked his side, and the pain shot up right to his head. 

“Gerard, wake the fuck up.”

He slowly opened his eyes. Initially, Gerard was searching for his bedroom, for the usual sunlight to peek in and burn him under the covers, but instead, he was met with a dissatisfied expression from Mikey, who was towering over him like a giant, and darkness rather than the sun. Gerard slid the sheets back over his head. 

“Gerard, we’re leaving. I already packed everything, let’s go.” Mikey’s shadow disappeared from the other side of the blanket, and Gerard pulled the fabric off entirely in defeat. His head didn’t hurt too bad, but he didn’t remember much after he had taken the painkillers. He only remembered the room’s ceiling. 

When he did sit up, he rubbed his eyes childishly and yawned, blinking furiously to see something. Expecting to see Mikey again, Gerard was surprised to see Frank there instead. The biker was hovering in the doorway, paying no attention to him or to that chaotic brother of his, who was gathering everything in a panic. Gerard stared at him, his head tilting to the side as his gaze roamed up and down. He was confused because he had been told he’d never see Frank again. He had been happy about that. “Frank?”

Mikey lazily looked up to see Frank too, then went back to counting all they had brought with them. Frank, on the other hand, wasn’t in the mood for talking, so he sluggishly waved at the man in the bed, trying not to focus too much on how he was going to a parent for the next six weeks. 

Nobody had answered Gerard’s intended question, so he sat there like an idiot, trying to remove the colorful stars from his vision. He didn’t snap out of it until Mikey threw his clothes at him. “Get dressed. We’re leaving in a few minutes.”

Mikey left the room with Frank close behind, but Gerard didn’t connect any dots. He slowly picked up the blood-stained clothes and changed, leaving the rest of the hospital room as it was. It took him a moment, but he stood and spared one last glance at the room’s window. That window had been good to him. 

Gerard walked out of the hospital. He assumed that Mikey had already checked him out, so he stood by the front entrance, waiting for a familiar car to pull up while holding the crucifix around his neck. And a few moments had passed when a familiar voice called to him from inside the building. 

“Mr. Way!” It was the doctor. Gerard absolutely hated that woman’s guts. She was one of those women who probably thought that they were charming when they really weren’t. She didn’t seem to understand that Gerard was an ill patient, not a piece of meat. 

Yet, Gerard still smiled politely, not saying anything as she ran up to him because he couldn’t remember her name. When she got to him, her hand was holding something, Gerard prayed to god that it wasn’t a phone number. It wasn’t. It was his bottle of painkillers. 

“You left this at the reception.” She smiled.

“I did?” But before anything more could be said, headlights poured over them, and Gerard turned to look at his brother’s car pulling up, so he quickly tucked the bottle away, and said goodbye to the bitch. Of course, Mikey had given the pills back to the hospital. Of course, he had.

Gerard got into the front passenger seat of the family car, huffing to his brother as a greeting. “Why’d you take so long?”

“I had put everything into the trunk, and then help Frank in,” Mikey said, driving out of the hospital grounds and onto the road home. Gerard nodded in response, watching as buildings blurred together in the snowy evening, but then his eyes widened. “Wait, what? Frank?”

“Yep.” There came a voice from the back, and Gerard turned to see the biker, sprawled out across the back seats as if he owned the place. In frantic, Gerard turned to his brother. 

“Mikey, what the hell are you doing?”

“Well, it’s nice to see you too.” Frank rolled his eyes, and through the rear-view mirror, Gerard could see how he crossed his arms. “Shut up,” Gerard said quickly, staring expectantly at his brother. “Mikey?”

“He’s staying with you until he finds somewhere to live.” Mikey shrugged, expecting a quarrel to go down within seconds as he stared at the road in front. Gerard thought he was going to have a heart attack. He was not going to live with Frank, he was not going to see him every morning and every evening when he had to attend to his personal things. It was impossible, Gerard never had a roommate, he wasn’t planning on learning to live with one. “Mikey, no.”

“Gerard,” Mikey said sternly, sparing a glance in his brother’s direction, then quickly turning back to the road. But Gerard furiously started shaking his head, and his greasy locks bounced around, so he tucked some of them behind his ears. “Mikey, no, no, no, no, no! You can’t do this! Make him live with you!”

“In case you’ve forgotten, I live with our _parents_. They don’t even know about the crash. How the hell do you think mom’s going to react when she sees a guy with tattoos and a broken leg?”

“Mikey, he is not living with me!”

It would be easier to say that Gerard had lost that argument, and was now sitting with a pout and staring out the window as they drove the rest of the way in silence. Gerard absolutely fucking hated Frank, not so much his brother because there was no point in doing that, but Frank…was a fucking asshole.

Gerard could see his sly smirk through the rear-view as Frank found joy in his frustration. It was true: Frank would rather see Gerard unhappy and _be_ unhappy than allow for both of them to be happy. Frank was just like that. To Gerard, Frank seemed ecstatic to share one fucking bathroom for the next six weeks. That fucker was going to sleep on the couch _without_ blankets. And Gerard regretted apologizing to him.

***

As soon as Frank stepped one foot into the apartment, he immediately stepped out of it. There was a hideous stench of an unaired room, the smell of sweat mixing with something like old air freshener. Frank absolutely hated air fresheners because they were just a fucking rip off of actual fresh air.

The building wasn’t big, at least it didn’t seem so at night. Gerard lived on the fourth floor with a few other neighbors here and there, so Frank wasn’t concerned about meeting a crazy old lady every morning in the elevator. But when Frank approached the apartment again, he groaned loudly and backed away to the wall on the other side of the hallway. Mikey didn’t look pleased with him, the usually dissatisfied stare being sent his way. But Gerard rolled his eyes and walked inside, dropping his jacket on the floor of the living room, and disappeared around a wall. “If you don’t like it, you should’ve chosen to stay with my brother!” His voice echoed through the home. 

Frank was absentmindedly pulling the collar of his jacket over his nose, his face scrunched up in disgust, but Mikey wasn’t having it. So the younger brother pulled him inside and helped him sit on the couch as there came a slamming of a door from Gerard’s direction. Frank huffed at Gerard’s childish behavior. 

“Don’t worry about him. You can never get used to that.” Mikey sighed, closing the front door and picking up the jacket on the carpet. Frank nodded, his gaze roaming around the living room. It was a pretty apartment. The front door led to a big room where Gerard put a couch and a television, the kitchen just off to the left, separated by a pretty marble counter. There was a hallway that led to what Frank assumed was the bedroom, and another room which looked like a bathroom, and overall, it was just really cozy. Frank could definitely get used to this. 

Mikey walked past him down the hall, rattling the doorknob to Gerard’s room, and knocking once he found out it was locked. “Gerard, please open the door.” There came a faint ‘why?’ in response to which Mikey said something about clothes, and the door opened. Soon, Mikey returned with a something like sweatpants and a t-shirt, throwing them into Frank, and then going to the kitchen. Frank got up and went to the bathroom to change after thanking him, only to realize that it was really, very incredibly difficult to put pants on. He rolled around on the floor for some time before finally shoving the cast in without too much pain.

Mikey made coffee for them, then brought a blanket from a closet that Frank hadn’t noticed and threw it into him, and handed him one of the mugs. He placed the second one on the coffee table in front of Frank and turned to leave. 

“Aren’t you going to drink that?” Frank asked, his voice sounding raspy from the hot drink in his hands. 

“No, actually. Gerard likes his coffee cold in the mornings sometimes.” And Mikey was gone. Frank hadn’t even thanked him properly, now he was staring into the closed front door, admiring the silence that rang through his ears. He drank the coffee uneventfully, he was half expecting Gerard to come out of his room but the other never did. And in that expectancy, Frank fell asleep.

***

“Who gave you that fucking blanket?” A piercing voice drew Frank out of his peaceful sleep, the sunlight peered into his eyes but he sensed a shadow standing over him. He opened one eye, hiding under the blanket and saw Gerard. Gerard with bed hair and dark circles under his eyes, his hands greedily holding the cup of coffee that had once been on the coffee table.

“Your brother.”

Gerard groaned grumpily, walking away from the couch and into the kitchen to do whatever he did in the mornings. Frank sat up, watching Gerard as the other moved about the cupboards and muttered something to himself. Eventually, Gerard offered him a cookie. “I’m no cook, but you can call Mikey and ask him for the _specialty menu_.”

Frank took the cookie. “So what the hell do you eat every day?”

Gerard bent down to get something from one of the low cupboards. “Before we met, and that had truly been a _blissful_ time, I drank gallons of coffee.”

“Only?”

“Well, what more do I need in life? Coffee is…you know, I don’t really know why I like coffee so much.” Gerard admitted, leaning against the counter as the machine brewed more beans. 

Frank chuckled, leaning lazily against the couch as Gerard poured two mugs and came to sit next to him. “All right, well, we have to establish some ground rules. You’re a temporary guest, don’t forget. That means that there are limits to what you can do in my home, you with me?”

Frank hummed in response, sipping on the warm drink and eyeing Gerard carefully. Gerard was interesting-looking. His features hadn’t changed all that much since Frank watched him sleep in the hospital. His nose was still incredibly tiny, Frank noticed that so were his teeth, but as Gerard was talking, only part of lips moved, and that bothered Frank a lot. So Frank tried to distract himself with something else. He looked at Gerard’s clothes. 

Gerard was wearing sweatpants, just like Frank, and some t-shirt that he couldn’t bother to look at for more than five seconds. As he was eyeing Gerard up and down, his gaze stopped at the crucifix. There it was, still around the asshole’s neck, still shiny and covered in Frank’s blood. Instinctively, Frank had to say something about. He interrupted Gerard’s useless rant in doing so.

“Are you religious?” Frank asked curiously, maybe even coming across as mockingly.

Gerard looked surprised at the sudden change of topic and looked down to see what Frank was talking about. His excitement faded a bit as he turned the cross over in his hands. “Oh, um, no, actually. I just…found it.”

“But you’re wearing it.”

“But I’m not religious.”

“Hm.” Frank placed the mug on the table and crossed his arms, giving Gerard something that resembled a scolding look. 

It made Gerard feel uncomfortable. He carefully undid the clasp in the back of his neck and took the necklace off, placing it next to Frank’s mug. “Look, forget it. If something bothers you, just don’t be a dick about it.” And with that, he stood, taking his second mug with him to the room and closed the door before Frank had a chance to say anything. In reality, Frank had plenty of time to do so, but he didn't, and he wasn’t sure why. Now that Gerard was gone, Frank stared at his crucifix in disappointment, muttering something mean about his mother. 

Gerard fell lazily onto the chair in front of his desk. That day, he had woken up with an open mind. He had slept nicely and gotten out of bed thinking that he should give Frank a chance. At least a chance. That was why he had been so outgoing, except when he saw the blanket, of course. But now, as he was sat in his room, thoughts swirled through his head. Frank was a fucking nobody, Gerard knew nothing about him, he could be sleeping in the same home as a fucking serial killer and he wouldn’t have known it. But that was fine, right? Since Mikey had decided it was fine, it was _fine_. 

Then, Gerard thought about his job. He had savings that would’ve kept him on his feet for a few months at most, but he had to start looking now for something _now_. Honestly, he doubted that someone would employ him. 

And as he was going through multiple awful scenarios of how being unemployed would put him where Frank was now, since Gerard was _never_ stepping foot in his parents’ house again, his head started to hurt. So he took a painkiller. But it kept hurting, so he took another. And while he was searching for jobs on the internet, scowling at a computer screen, his head suddenly fell limp against the desk, and he went unconscious, nothing but a loud bang echoing through the quiet home. 

Frank was watching a movie. He didn’t think much of it. 

A few hours later, Gerard woke up abruptly in a sweat. His shirt was damp, his vision was foggy, the computer screen was dark and so was the outside already. He felt out of it, lighter than usual, and giddier. The home was quiet, or Gerard just didn’t hear anything, both were entirely possible. 

Gerard was enjoying this side of him. Whatever he was feeling, he felt blissful. He stood, and instantly fell to the floor, then dragged himself to the bed. Tucking his sweaty body under the covers, laughter erupted out of him for a solid ten minutes before he fell asleep.

***

The next morning, Gerard’s head was absolutely fine. There was a bit of discomfort, but that discomfort usually came when he didn’t have coffee. Not to mention that sunlight was hitting his eyes straight on, and the covers were too warm, and he was strangely sweaty. Of course, in tossing and turning in the bed and being too lazy to get up, Gerard remembered the painkillers. Well, he remembered how great he felt with them.

Gerard rolled out of bed, staring at the bottle of pills for a while because Mikey’s voice kept ringing through his ears. He could just imagine his brother’s mocking tone in a sentence like _Gerard, don’t take any_. But Gerard believed he had a headache, so he took one. 

Coming out to the kitchen, Gerard saw Frank sprawled out on the couch, his mouth slightly open as he slept, hugging the thin blanket with all he had. Gerard rolled his eyes and grumpily started the coffee pot, hearing Frank stir restlessly. As Gerard was watching the pot, leaned lazily against the marble, Frank’s morning groans echoed through the apartment. 

“Gerard?” Frank said sleepily. “Is that you?”

“No, it’s fucking Santa Claus,” Gerard muttered grumpily to himself. 

Frank groaned a bit more before tiredly sitting up, his hair messily looking in all directions as he searched for Gerard. “Yeah, good morning.” 

The older man huffed in return, averting his gaze to the coffee that was supposed to be seconds away from being ready. Frank scratched his cheek. “So um, what the hell am I supposed to do every day?”

Gerard watched the coffee finish, pouring himself a cup, and stayed in the kitchen, away from Frank. “Whatever you want.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“Look for a job.”

Frank nodded, his gaze lingering on the mug Gerard had in his hands. Little did he know, Gerard wasn’t going to fucking give him any coffee. “Any luck so far?” Frank asked instead.

“No.”

“So you spent all day yesterday looking for something?”

Gerard started to walk out of the kitchen, wishing for nothing more than to ignore Frank’s question, but a sly smirk on the biker’s face almost made him throw the burning coffee. “Yes.” He pinched the bridge of his nose until the bone started to hurt.

“What was that loud bang?” 

Gerard couldn’t remember one. He hadn’t been conscious enough to hear one, and he couldn’t place the time when one could have happened. “I don’t remember any.”

Frank raised his brows, leaning against the back of the warm furniture, and decided that it didn’t matter. What did matter though, was that he didn’t have clothes. He suddenly remembered his clothes. “Gerard?”

Gerard had been seconds away from stepping into his room again, but that voice was fucking annoying. “Yes, Frank?”

“I need clothes.”

Gerard turned his head, and his fiery gaze met Frank’s innocent one. He took a deep breath before walking into his room, placing the coffee down, then started to rummage through his drawers. Eventually, he came out of the room with half of everything he owned, all the way from jeans to boxers, and threw them all at Frank. He went back into the room, and closed the door behind him loudly, mumbling about how he was going to have to bleach everything he owned in six weeks.

Frank was starting to lose track just how many times the Way brothers had thrown something at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some time off for the summer, only to see endless amounts of rain. Opinions on the chapter, please.


	9. Another Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's the day for the Way family. Frank starts to see Gerard in a different light.

It had been a few days. Maybe more.

It was morning. The kind of morning with the birds and the sunshine, the hopeful kind of morning that happy people liked. The morning where people planned fun things to do in the fresh snow, perhaps go skiing or mountain climbing. Yet to do that, a person needed money. Gerard didn’t have money.

Yes, it had only been a few days, maybe more, and Frank hadn’t been anything but kind, maybe even supportive of Gerard finding a job. Gerard reminded himself of that as he tapped the pencil on the wooden desk, hearing the bang every few seconds. No interviews were being offered his way, there were no companies accepting him so far. He needed the money. 

Two months. That was how long he had before the heat would be turned off, before the groceries would stop being bought, before he went begging Mikey for help. God, he feared that the most: going to his brother for financial aid. Gerard was the bigshot in the family, the kid with the well-paying job at a young age, the _successful_ one. Mikey wasn’t jealous of that, Gerard didn’t think so. He just thought it would have looked degrading. 

The pencil kept tapping the desk while Gerard went through his emails. Another refusal. Typical. And he had been at his computer for about six hours. He hadn’t been able to sleep, the sun had come up with him sitting at his desk, the air filled with nothing but Frank’s quiet snores coming from the living room. Naturally, Gerard had a headache. Even more so naturally, he took the painkillers. 

He was getting high on them. A psychological and physical addiction. Frank had definitely noticed something, but like hell, he was going to say anything. Unless he knew for certain, Frank wasn’t going to snitch to Mikey, whose name he learned was also not Mickey. But he had seen Gerard act strange. And now, he was awake on the couch, his arm propping his head up, knowing that Gerard was awake, too. 

There was something different about today though. 

The phone rang. It was Gerard’s phone, so Frank waited for a few moments, wondering if Gerard was going to appear anytime soon to answer it. _Naturally_ , he didn’t. Frank suspected he was out of it again. 

It took him a hell of a long time, but Frank picked it up. He had to redial the number, but he picked it up. 

“Gerard? Are you still asleep? Unbelievable! Do you even know what today is?” Mikey yelled through the phone so loudly that Frank had to keep the device about half a meter away from his ear. 

“It’s Frank. Um, Gerard’s in his room,” 

“Oh. Sorry, then. Well, when he wakes up, tell him it’s Elena’s day,”

Frank was insanely curious as to who this was. This Elena. She must have been important for Gerard to scream for her, she must have been important for them to celebrate her ‘day,’ whatever that meant. But Frank doubted just how important she was when Gerard took the drugs that made him forget her. Then, he didn’t have to wonder anymore because Gerard came out of his room, tired and with a piece of paper in his hand, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him.

“Who was that?” He asked, his eyes running over the paper as he walked into the kitchen. Conveniently, it was exactly where Frank stood.

“Mikey.”

Gerard hummed, setting the paper on the table and moving toward the coffee. Frank took a closer look at it. It was all scratched out with pen as if Gerard had been crossing things out. It was his job list, Frank figured. s

“What did he want?”

Frank looked up and met Gerard’s gaze. The older man sipped coffee, waiting for an answer but not with concern or worry, almost like Mikey was only a bother to him and nothing more. However, Frank still tried to be as sympathetic as he could. 

“He wanted me to tell you that today,” Frank paused, “is Elena’s day.”

Gerard didn’t move. His hand was still wrapped around the mug, but he didn’t drink. Frank thought that he hadn’t even swallowed the coffee in his mouth yet. With that kind of expression on Gerard’s face, Frank knew that he loved her. 

In a few moments, Gerard carefully put the mug down on the counter behind him, and Frank didn’t breathe because he didn’t know if the man would snap. Instead, Gerard just sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to soothe the ache that came along with the headache. He knew that he was slightly high, but not entirely, he could still focus, he could still feel tired. Elena would have still been disappointed. 

“Elena,” Gerard echoed, staring at the floor.

There was a heavy silence, one that rang through both of their ears. Gerard knew how many pills it would take to get him through seeing the whole family: a lot. Frank also had to come with him because he didn’t trust the biker enough to be on his own. It looked like the family was going to meet Gerard’s most recent mistake. Maybe he could shrug it off as a supportive friendship. Maybe they didn’t have to meet at all.

“Was Mikey mad?” Gerard asked, formulating a backstory for Frank, his new temporary _best_ and _supportive_ friend. 

“I mean, yeah, it sounded like that. I just – she seems important, and you forgot, so,” Frank shrugged, not knowing where the conversation was going. He scratched his nose absentmindedly while his mind wandered around the possibilities of this girl. 

Gerard hadn’t responded with anything yet, his arms were crossed against his chest, and they dug in painfully as he thought. How could he have forgotten, he thought. This had been everything to him just a few days ago, maybe longer actually. Oh god, it had been so long since he even remembered her name. 

“I didn’t forget,” he mumbled. “On the contrary, I just-,” Gerard stopped short because this was too much of a lie for him to keep up with. Frank would see right through him, so there was just no point in hiding anything. 

“You forgot,” Frank said firmly. 

Gerard met his gaze sheepishly. “I forgot.”

Gerard drank his coffee, even offered Frank one. Well, it had been their routine for the past few days. Gerard usually helped Frank before disappearing into his room until nightfall. Sometimes, they watched movies. Sometimes, they talked. 

“Today will different,” Gerard said. “Today, you’ll meet some new people. Maybe, of course.”

Frank had already known that it was a different day. It was the way he had woken up, and the way he heard movement in the distance of the apartment, filled with giggles and crying because Gerard was high. Frank already knew that everything about this was different. 

“People?”

“We’re going to the gathering. My family usually celebrates anniversaries of dead relatives,” Gerard shrugged. Frank ignored the way Gerard had winced at the word ‘dead.’ 

“I can’t stay behind?”

“No.”

Stubbornness. What a stupid quality to have in this case. 

“If they ask, you’re my best friend who’s just being supportive. You’re there for me,” Gerard said with a pleading look in his eye. 

“I’m there for you,” Frank echoed hazily. _I’m there for you_ – unfortunately, in Frank’s opinion.

***

It was just like it had been seven years ago, with the parents’ car, with the ugly gray sky, and with a few crows around. Seven years ago, strangely enough, it had hardly been snowing that winter. Today, however, it was white and vast, and it felt like the graveyard just never ended. Or maybe it was called a cemetery, Gerard didn’t know. He walked through the snow, approaching the small crowd of people who all turned to look at him.

He was afraid this time. And he craved the painkillers. But he had Frank, who just refused to leave the car though. And there were already curious relatives shooting glances in their direction. Sure, his parents eyed him strangely, asking themselves where their son was. Donna wasn’t smoking that time. She was dressed casually along with her husband, and they were standing around the grave with the rest. 

She looked different to Gerard. The only memory he had of her was with a cigarette. Now, she held a frown and looked older. Gerard knew that she had mixed feelings about him. He had become successful, sure, but she knew that he was strangely different, and that wasn’t bad, she just couldn’t understand it. But he hadn’t spoken to her in a long time, and suddenly, he appeared at a family reunion. Donna just had to accept that her son loved her own mother more. 

She stretched out her hand to him, Gerard debated taking it. The whole family was watching them, if he took it, it was a sign of something he couldn’t commit to. But Gerard took her hand anyway, letting his mother lead him to the front of the family members. He stared at Elena’s grave in silence. 

“Seven years. That’s a hell of a long time,” Gerard heard his mother say. She had a raspy voice, and her fingers were rough in his hand. He just couldn’t believe that the woman next to him was his mother. 

Frank was in the car with Mikey. He was looking out the window, trying to find Gerard among his family around the grave. Mikey was sitting in the driver’s seat with his hands angrily gripping the steering wheel. Occasionally, the younger brother turned to look at the grave, but he could never keep his gaze there long enough. 

“Aren’t you going to go?” Frank asked. 

Mikey scoffed. “Why should I? My mom’s just going to pamper Gerard as always, mostly because she hasn’t seen him as her son in almost seven years. But me, I’ll be at home tonight. She’ll see me there.”

Seven years. Damn, Frank didn’t know that Elena had been dead for seven years. There was definitely something wrong with Gerard if he still thought about her. “What about to talk to Elena? I know you loved her.” Frank also wanted to say that Elena loved Mikey, but he wasn’t sure what their relationship had been like. 

“She’s dead, Frank,”

“Gerard doesn’t think so,” 

Mikey turned around in the seat to shoot Frank a questioning look.

“She lives in him,” Frank added. “He still loves her. He hasn’t spoken to anyone in his family, but he still came to see her.”

“It’s been seven years. _Seven_. Her death ruined him.”

“You’re saying she’s to blame?” 

“I’m saying I wouldn’t have lost a brother if she hadn’t died.” Mikey snapped.

Frank furrowed his brows. “That’s bold.” He turned back to look out the window. 

After a few moments of angry silence shared between the two strangers in the car, Mikey violently opened his door, then shut it as loudly as he could. Frank watched him walk toward the crowd of people, frowning to himself. Mikey was just hurt, he thought.

The mother, Frank didn’t know her name, hugged Mikey as soon as she saw him. Frank could see that instead, Mikey was looking at Gerard, maybe even with hurt, jealousy, or hate. And Frank hadn’t realized, but the gathering was taking a long time. He had just been staring out the window, monitoring the family from a safe distance, so that there would be no required explanations as to whom he was. 

Frank started to notice that people were leaving. Aunts and uncles, supposedly; cousins and close friends. They walked past Frank in the car, hardly acknowledging anything about him. None of them were crying, there weren’t even any traces of tears. Frank guessed that seven years _was_ a long enough time to forget someone.  
Eventually, it was just the brothers and their parents. Frank could see Gerard clearly, how the man just stood and stared at the grave. Frank wondered if he had moved even an inch since he’d gotten there. He could see how Mikey felt out of place with his parents and his brother, and there was definitely tension. 

Then, Mikey patted his mother’s shoulder and turned to leave. Frank was looking into his eyes, seeing nothing but anger and exhaustion before Mikey opened the car door again and recklessly fell in. Neither of the two had anything to say. 

Gerard was looking at the grave that had been his turning point for a shitty life. He didn’t know how long it had been, but everyone was gone now, and his parents wanted to go, too. He just couldn’t bring himself to move.

“Gerard, honey, we’re going now,” His mother said. Suddenly, Gerard was having a déjà vu. He remembered that the last time his mother had said anything like that, he’d ignored her. He was going to ignore her this time as well. 

“Gerard, we’re leaving.”

He didn’t even look in her direction. He was mesmerized by the fact that the person he wanted for the past seven years was under his feet now. And she was decayed, possibly nothing more than a pile of thin bones that could shatter with the faintest breath. 

He heard a sigh come from his mother. “Will you call at least?” She asked.

Gerard swallowed heavily. “No mom, I won’t call. On the contrary, the next time I see you will be next year. Or maybe the year after,” He shrugged, his hands fumbling around in his pockets for cigarettes. 

So Donna walked away with her husband, leaving Gerard to sulk on his own. Everybody could see how Gerard was maybe an inch away from crying again, everybody except Frank. He’d never seen Gerard with Elena, he was expecting to be home soon. He heard Mikey sigh as their parents made their to the car, he heard how the younger brother hit the steering wheel out of anger. 

“Fuck this,” Mikey said, getting out of the car and joining his parents. Frank wasn’t sure where Mikey was going until he got into the parents’ car and drove away with them. 

So this was it. Everybody left Gerard alone. 

Frank was also slightly worried about Gerard driving them home. 

He heard faint sobs coming from the grave. Frank turned to see Gerard on his knees, his head hanging low above the grave, and his face scrunched up in pain. He was sitting in the snow, with a look showing how he had given up completely, and Frank understood that no family member wanted to deal with that. And that Gerard didn’t want to deal with them either. 

But Frank couldn’t just leave Gerard to sob in front of a grave. Using as much energy as he had left, Frank got out of the car. There was so much snow, he didn’t know how the hell he was going to walk through it with crutches. 

Somehow, with some kind of stubbornness, Frank treaded through the white, meeting Gerard’s side eventually. Gerard was a mess, crying into his hands and mumbling under his breath. It took him a few moments before he noticed Frank’s presence. 

“What do you want? To laugh at me like the rest of them?” Gerard said with a broken voice as he tried to stop crying. Frank only swallowed, unsure of what to do with him. 

“Did Mikey leave?” Gerard asked, looking up at Frank through his eyelashes. Frank stared down at him, and gosh, Gerard looked beautiful in this light. 

His eyes were red, surrounded by the elegant curve of the lashes, standing out with their hazel. His nose was slightly pink from the crying and the cold, and his lips were red and swollen. His hair was flowing in the light wind, tickling the skin of his face once in a while. Gerard had the most innocent expression, pleading and childish, and he looked heartbroken beyond repair. 

“Yes, he did,” Frank said quietly, watching as Gerard turned back to the grave. 

A few minutes later, Gerard found the words to speak. “You know, seven years ago, he stayed with me. my brother didn’t leave me alone.” 

Frank gaze roamed around Gerard’s profile. God, he looked so beautiful, and Frank felt so bad for him. “I’m sorry.”

Gerard looked up again. “Why? Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. You’re here, right? You didn’t leave me alone.”

Frank thought that if he looked at Gerard any longer, he would’ve started to see him in a different light, and he didn’t know if he was ready for that. He turned to look at the grave. 

It was old, clearly worn down by the harsh weather of an open field. Frank was surprised to see that Elena had lived quite a long life. His theory of her being someone that Gerard had been in love flew completely out of the window. When he read the words _beloved grandmother_ , then he understood. And he figured that was why everyone was so insensitive toward Gerard. Elena had lived her life, everyone thought it was time to let her go, but Gerard just couldn’t.

“She was amazing,” Gerard said suddenly. It sounded like he had a lot on his mind, and that he wanted to share at least _something_ with Frank. “She was more than amazing, she was the best.”

“She still is, Gerard,” Frank put his hand on Gerard’s shoulder, earning a small smile from him in return. And god, a smile looked even prettier on Gerard than tears. “You haven’t forgotten her, she still lives.”

Gerard sniffled softly, wiping his nose in the most subtle way, but Frank still noticed. Frank was starting to notice everything about him. 

“My family hates me, you know,” Gerard said. “They absolutely hate me. My mom asked if I would call, and I said no. What son refuses to call their mother?”

“A son whose mother doesn’t understand him,” Frank said knowingly, earning a concerned yet curious look from Gerard. 

“Have you called your mother recently?” Gerard asked challengingly. 

“No. If I had, I wouldn’t be living with you.”

Gerard nodded slowly, his mind elsewhere. His hand went up to caress the crucifix around his neck, and Frank smiled, suddenly having the urge to tell him the truth about it. “I’m Catholic, you know.”

He could see how Gerard raised his brows in surprise. “Is that why you were such a dick about this?” Gerard raised the cross a little higher, and the gray light reflected against the metal right into Frank’s eyes. 

“I had a cross just like that,” Frank said, ignoring the question. “In the hospital, right after Mikey told me that faith was a waste of time, I threw it out the window.”

Gerard looked up again. 

“It even had a bit of my blood on it from the crash,” Frank added.

“So it’s…yours?” 

Frank shrugged. “I just thought you should know.”

Gerard looked at it for a moment, then turned it over in his hands. “That’s funny, isn’t it?”

“Just a bit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's reading this, and an even bigger thank you to all who've said nice things about my writing! I also have a terrible headache (karma, I suppose) so please make me feel better by commenting.


	10. Snowblind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard asks for all the poison, all the pills, and all the hopeless hearts to make him ill, but his wish comes with a price of seeing something he shouldn't have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be one of my favorite chapters. I worked extra hard, and I think it turned out better than usual. Side note: Gerard's recent drawing of The Grinch gives me life.

“You don’t need a refill,” The doctor stated blatantly. Her arms were crossed, a tired frown on her face as she looked at Gerard, silently begging him to leave her alone. 

“No, I do. My head is killing me. The patient with the tattoos and the broken leg that I _supposedly_ crashed into took all of them.”

They were standing in the middle of the hospital, right in front of the reception desk with all the nurses in perfect hearing range, so Gerard knew that he had to be careful with his words. He didn’t walk all this way for nothing. He didn’t lie to Frank about getting his favorite vegan bagels for nothing. Frank really fucking loved those bagels, but it wasn't like Gerard even had money to buy them.

The doctor looked really tired, he didn’t know how many surgeries she had done on bones that day. He thought that she was maybe an orthopedic surgeon since she’d helped Frank with his leg, or maybe a neurosurgeon since she’d helped him with his head. Or maybe the hospital had just been short-staffed and Gerard was making too many things up as he stared at her. 

“I can run tests to see if there’s anything wrong with your head,” She suggested, scratching her eyebrow. “Have you hurt it again recently? Been excessively physically active?”

“No.” Gerard swallowed nothing. Now, that he thought about it, it didn’t hurt that bad. He hadn’t thrown up at all, he hadn’t even felt nauseated. His head really was fine. “I think it’s just from the crash, you know? Just aftermath.”

Doctors, especially this one, did not like to be told how to do their job. She gave him a look. “I can do that. But it won’t be a full bottle. It’ll be half,” The only reason she’d said that was because she knew they were addictive. Gerard looked convincing of his pain, but she knew she couldn’t trust ragged-looking patients. 

“That’s fine. As long as it will help with my headache. And once it stops, I won’t use them.”

That was enough for the doctor. She nodded and waved to the receptionist to take his information, then left after being paged. Gerard felt like he was in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy with all the commotion. The receptionist tapped the counter between them to get his attention, and he met the nurse’s shy gaze. She was really, very pretty. 

“I’ll need your information and consent.”

Gerard quickly nodded and was about to write his name when he heard pages go off in every corner. All of the surrounding doctors and nurses were holding their pagers as Gerard looked around, watching as they all started running in one direction. It really was an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

“Hey,” He whispered at the receptionist. “What’s going on?”

She looked at her computer screen for a second then said, “A new 911 just came in.”

“Cool, anything gory?” Gerard asked with a smirk, earning a playfully disappointed look from the girl. 

“Gory with a heart attack, actually.”

“Oh, less cool,” Gerard furrowed his brows. “But then why is the whole floor being paged?”

She looked at the screen some more. “A lot of patients? It just says that there were a few fatal car accidents caused by one driver, then he had a heart attack. Poor guy. Guilt, I guess.”

Gerard felt his stomach swirl. He could have easily been that driver, killing multiple people at a time. His breath slowed a little bit as he thought about that, and he frowned, hiding under his hair. With a shaky inhalation, a signature appeared on the papers. “Yeah, guilt.”

***

Bent over the toilet, with his back arched in an uncomfortable way, and his knees digging into the cold tiles of the floor, Gerard threw up most of his insides. His stomach twisted in pain, the vomit didn’t stop, and Gerard felt like dying rather than going through this. His head didn’t hurt at all, he figured it was because of the pills, but like hell, he was going to stop taking them. Gerard loved getting high.

He flushed the toilet for the third time, three hours being marked by a cheap little clock standing near the sink. He’d been in the bathroom for three hours, throwing up. Gerard’s back hit the cold tile of the bathtub as he tried to relax even for a few moments before more insides would want to see daylight. He was so tired that he panted with his eyes closed, ignoring the gross smell that lingered around him. He just wanted another pill. 

There came a soft knock on the door, and Gerard just barely opened his eyes to look at it even though it was locked. 

“Gerard, you alright?” It was Frank. Gerard smiled weakly as he thought about Frank caring about him. At least someone cared. 

“Yeah, I’m uh, I’m alright,” Gerard said weakly, out of breath. 

After a few moments of silence, Frank spoke again. “Are you – are you throwing up?”

“Uh,” Gerard panted, glancing at the toilet as he thought of what to say. “Yeah. My head hurts.”

“That bad?”

“I guess. I mean, yeah, I guess so,” Gerard heard Frank shift on the other side of the door.

“Can I come in?” 

Gerard furrowed his brows as he tried to adjust himself on the floor. He didn’t want Frank to see him in such a state, fragile and weak and full of shame. “Um, that’s – that’s not the best thing right now. It’s kind of gross in here and I-”

“Please?”

Gerard closed his mouth, swallowing any excess of the bodily fluid as far down as he could push it. Even if he did want Frank to come in, there was no way he had enough energy to get up, but he didn’t want to hurt Frank’s feelings. He really didn’t want to hurt them. “I uh, I can’t get up much.”

“Huh?”

“The door, it’s locked, and I’m too weak to stand,” Gerard said quietly with embarrassment.

Frank didn’t speak for a while. He didn’t seem to have moved either. Gerard was waiting for something to happen or to be said as his heart raced. He heard his heartbeat in his ears, bothering the silence that was in the house when Frank spoke up. “Then I’ll just tell you through the door.”

Gerard heard Frank slide toward the floor, he even saw how the wood bent a bit inwards as Frank’s body weighed it down. Eventually, Gerard could see the biker’s shadow appear in the small opening under the wood. He swallowed air some more. 

“Mikey drove me to the hospital today,” Frank started. 

Gerard’s heartbeat just sped up at the thought of him being seen there. He went through every possible fight that he could have with his brother about getting a new prescription. He wasn’t even supposed to get _one_ , and Gerard was afraid of what Frank was going to think of him. It took a few moments, but he played along. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“I got my cast removed.” 

Gerard could practically hear the grin on Frank’s face, and he breathed out a laugh, and then another one as the words settled in right next to relief. “You have your leg back?”

Frank laughed. “Well, I never lost it. It was always there, but yeah. I’m normal again. I can walk.”

Gerard smiled himself. “That’s great, Frank. Really, truly great.” He was just happy that it wasn’t about the painkillers. And then he remembered how long a cast was usually on for. It had been five weeks since Elena’s anniversary. It had been six since Frank moved in. Six weeks that flew by incredibly quickly with Frank sleeping in the next room. 

Gerard didn’t even realize what great friends they’d become. 

Six weeks of morning greetings, smiles, and endless amounts of coffee. Everything morning, Gerard woke up, more tired than the night before, coming down from his painless high. Every morning, he made coffee for both of them, sometimes they watched cartoons together. The mornings ended in laughter and Looney Tunes, and Frank threw raisins at Gerard. 

Because of that, Gerard dedicated his mornings to Frank. They started getting to know each other. They talked a lot, Gerard learned about Frank’s life. He learned the story of a lot of the tattoos and the piercings. Apparently, Frank also played guitar, but when Gerard begged him to play something, Frank just refused. 

Once, Gerard asked about him running away, and the story behind that. Frank always got really sad, said that he missed his parents and his dogs. Frank explained how he wanted freedom, even just for a little bit, he wanted to see the world. From his own pocket money, he bought a bike, left a note saying that he’d be gone for a few weeks, and disappeared. When he called from a hotel a few days later to check up on his parents, they didn’t want to speak to him. Frank looked so upset about that and Gerard felt so bad.

“So uh, did you get those vegan bagels?” Frank asked, disrupting the trance.

Gerard stared at the door. He was so exhausted and ashamed and guilty, and he fucking hated himself. A wave of sadness swept over him, and he sniffled softly before looking at the floor. “No, Frankie,” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry, they were fresh out of bagels.”

***

“Are you sure you’re not cold?” Gerard asked again, his eyes roaming over Frank’s small frame dressed thin sweatpants and a t-shirt. And even though it was really dark, Frank’s eyes stood out like wildfire to him, so Gerard stared, swallowing air.

“I’m fine, I told you.”

“Frank, it’s the dead of winter. You’re going to freeze.”

Frank just pouted like a child, scratching his free leg. He looked so happy about losing the cast. When Gerard had come out of the bathroom, there was this huge grin on his face, and he looked lighter than air. His eyes shined bright then, and they shined now, especially because it was dark. Frank was free to walk on his own again. There was no more flailing around on the floor trying to get underwear on. (Frank never admitted to such a thing, but Gerard could not be wrong about the grunts coming from the bathroom.) (Once, in flailing around in the bathroom, Frank knocked over a bottle of soap, and Gerard had to scrub the floor before it became sticky. Frank was really sorry about that.)

Ignoring the biker’s protests, Gerard threw the only blanket from his own bed into Frank. Now that he had two blankets, he’d be warm. Gerard was going to get high, so warmth didn’t matter much. 

“But you-”

“Nonsense, Frank. Absolute nonsense. Get a shower going if you’re that cold. It’ll warm you up,” Gerard suggested, walking away to his room. “At least while we have water,” He muttered under his breath. 

The bedroom was dark as shit, Gerard could hardly find his bed again. He lazily plopped down onto it, sighing as he stared up into the darkness at nothing. Shame and guilt lingered in his stomach, and he thought when it would get too much, he’d throw up again, probably in the middle of the night. But he still wanted the pills. In the darkness, his hand swept over the nightstand for them. He hadn’t finished the first bottle yet, but he was close, and now he had a second one at his disposal as well. 

With its emptiness, the darkness didn’t do anything but help his craving. Gerard felt awful, he really did, for taking the drugs like this all the time. He couldn’t control it. The plastic was cracking under his strong grip as he squeezed the bottle. Without a blanket, he could really feel the coolness of winter, and that also didn’t help his craving. So after what seemed like an eternity of debate, Gerard took a small handful of the meds. He wasn’t sure how many he had taken, but it was a lot. Not enough to kill him, though.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes, and after a while, sleep was so close, but the shower started, and the noise of rushing water ran through the whole apartment, maybe even their neighbors’. So Gerard’s eyes were wide open again, staring at the ceiling again, this time with the sound of bad tubes rattling in the walls. 

The pills were starting to kick in, making Gerard lazily roll over and giggle. He clawed at the bedsheet and laughed to himself, the noise hidden under the noise of the shower. Everything was just so funny when he was high. So fucking funny that Gerard was crying.

Elena was ridiculously funny to him. And her funeral. The look on his mother’s face five weeks prior and seven years ago. The way his dad just ignored him both times, holding his wife’s hand as she cried. Mikey was funny to him, how he had been miserable for seven years until he couldn’t take it anymore and just asked for his big brother back. His unemployment was funny, how the heat was going to be turned off in about half a month, and how he didn’t have money for fucking bagels. But the funniest thing of all was how he crashed into Frank and broke his leg. It was funny how Frank’s only dream of freedom was completely crushed, and how life led him to Gerard’s shower at midnight this particular winter. 

Gerard stopped laughing. Highly, he rubbed his eyes, sitting on the bed in a childish position with his legs crossed. He suddenly wanted to see Frank. He wanted to apologize for crashing into him because even on drugs, Gerard wasn’t a shitty person. So he stood, his legs wobbling slightly as he reached into the air around him out of caution. Eventually, his hand touched the wall and he quietly slid against it, holding his mouth shut of any escaping giggles. He opened the bedroom door and walked into the hallway, where escaping light from the bathroom lit his way. The wall scraped against his hand painfully, but Gerard kept going. 

“Frankie,” He whispered with a small giggle. “Are you in there, Frankie?”

When no answer came, and only the sound of running water rushed through his ears, Gerard continued. “Frankie, I’m sorry for crashing into you. I really am. I hope you can still walk normally.” He clawed at the wall a bit, but no one responded, _Frankie_ hadn’t heard him, and so with a sad frown on his face, he turned away. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to hate me. We’re friends, right?” 

After a few moments, with Gerard standing and blinking as widely as possible for his own entertainment, forgetting why he was there entirely, there came a loud noise from inside, like a bottle of soap dropping. Gerard curiously turned his head toward the door. 

“Motherfucker,” Frank swore, muffled by the water. 

Gerard couldn’t understand what had happened, and he carelessly pressed his mouth right into the crack between the door and its frame until his nose dug in. “Frankie,” Gerard murmured, “Are you alright?” 

Frank couldn’t hear him at all, and Gerard was becoming slightly curious as to why. He leaned on the door just a bit when suddenly, it opened by itself. Frank hadn’t locked it, that much was obvious, and even though showering was private, Gerard still felt the need to open it more. His fingers lightly scraped against the wood when a wave of steam hit him straight in the face. With a frown, his head pulled back instinctively as he waited for the room to cool a little. Then, Gerard gently poked his head in. 

“Frankie, are you in here?” He looked around the bathroom. There was vapor on the mirror, clouding his reflection as he looked into it. The sink had a layer of moisture on it, glistening in the light, and Frank’s toothbrush was laying lazily on top with a hint of white paste that hadn’t been washed off properly. The toilet had a pair of boxers thrown onto it, the sweatpants and t-shirt from earlier sitting on the floor. When Gerard looked up higher, he was met with his glass shower door and a silhouette of a person.

Their skin had black and light contrasts, the arms were strong as they moved. Gerard could see outlines of muscles, maybe it was just the lighting, but he couldn’t look away. The person bent down to pick something up, and Gerard could see their brawny lower back until eventually, his sight led lower. It took him a whole lot of time of staring and dawdling to realize it was Frank. 

The biker turned under the stream, there wasn’t enough vapor to hide everything, but Gerard couldn’t see many details. He swallowed down air when Frank rested his hand against the shower wall, letting his head sit under the waterfall. Gerard could see how the water dripped from his hair, weighing it down and covering his head. He could how Frank was breathing, the panting and the rise and fall of his chest. The panting made something in him click. He wasn’t sure what that was, but it was a powerful feeling. 

His trance might have continued forever, but Frank turned off the water, and Gerard watched as he ran a hand through his wet hair. When Frank reached for the handle of the glass door, Gerard quickly ducked back into the hallway, leaving the crack in the door open as he thought of what to do now. 

Frank’s breathing was filling his ears with another powerful feeling until he felt his own heart beat faster than ever and his breathing cut short. Out of raging curiosity, Gerard peaked through the door once more, this time staying in the hallway. His hand came up to hold the frame as his eyes blew wide open, and his lips parted. 

Frank was naked, standing on a little towel that Gerard kept on the floor because he hated standing on cold tiles. Every part of him was gorgeous now that there was nothing blocking the view. Gerard was mesmerized as Frank searched for his towel, eventually wrapping it around himself. That was when Gerard decided he couldn’t risk watching anymore, and he slowly disappeared from the view of the light. 

Thoughts swirled through his head while he walked in the darkness. His footsteps were silent and his hand slid against the wall again so he wouldn’t fall. When he made it back to the room, he lifelessly fell onto the bed and stared at the ceiling again. 

Frank was fucking beautiful. But this was high Gerard talking. And high Gerard wanted more. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get more, at least not right now, so to help him think, he absentmindedly reached for a cigarette. There was a pack on his nightstand that he had been neglected recently, mostly because he was never sober enough to remember his craving for nicotine, and Elena’s lighter was still there. 

Gerard lit the cigarette in the dark as best he could, if he burned himself, he wasn’t able to feel it at the moment, and slowly brought the stick to his lips. The smoke twirled prettily in the air while he breathed out, and Gerard didn’t feel sad anymore. He didn’t feel happy. He didn’t feel guilty. 

Gerard unexpectedly wanted to paint. And he knew that he was falling in love since all he could think about was that fucking body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter name was taken from Black Sabbath's "Snowblind" (about a drug addiction). Leave a comment!


	11. To Me, You Are a Work of Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This. This is the chapter you've all been waiting for.

The canvas glowed with the glitter of moonlight. The strokes were messy, uncoordinated, and the colors were peculiar together. It held a sort of cold aura, into which Gerard couldn’t help but immerse himself. His whole soul was inside the painting.  
A picture was worth a thousand words, they said.

There weren’t many things he thought about. It was late, or maybe early morning even, and he had one goal in mind, it was currently being fulfilled. Frank was heard shuffling around on the couch, groaning to himself, a noise at which Gerard stopped painting, and looked at his closed-door instead.

The room smelled of paint and something else, possibly his un-showered body and sweat-soaked bedsheets. While he painted, he pretended that Frank was right there, right next to him, all sprawled out and willing, tangled in the sheets.

And it felt as though he’d seen the biker in the shower just last night, but it had been quite the amount of days where Gerard just sat in his room and painted. By then, almost every last pill was in his body, so close to overdose yet hardly there, and Frank had just been too afraid to say anything. Everyone was telling themselves that Gerard was just looking for a job. All day. Every day.

Gerard hummed as he set the paintbrush down. Another canvas filled to its brim. There wasn’t a single blank splotch, everything was colored, accented, meant to be together, and he admired it, wiping his hands. _Frank looked lovely _.__

There were about a dozen other paintings, all of a similar style, all of the same person. Frank was in a different position every time, it almost seemed as if Gerard had taken hours just studying him. A few features were off, some proportions as well since he hadn’t actually spent any time studying at all. Frank was really just drawn from his own imagination.

The sun peeked into the room, Gerard decided to walk out of the bedroom, passing the stretching Frank and headed into the kitchen. The daylight was bothering his vision, his eyes were bloodshot and tired, almost as if he had forced them to stay open for the past week with staples. His lips were dry, his hair so dirty that it stood on its own, a sight that made Frank think he was still asleep.

“Gerard?” Frank asked. “Are you all right?”

Gerard’s hands shook as he poured old coffee into his cup. He even spilled some onto the counter while Frank was sitting and staring. “Absolutely fine.” His voice was wretchedly wrecked, it had been a while since water was in his system.

“Gerard, you’re covered in paint. Is that even paint? What the hell are you doing in there?”

Gerard held the mug of coffee and stepped out of the kitchen, too afraid to look at his obsession. He knew he was dirty, he knew what he was doing was wrong, it was so wrong, but he just couldn’t help himself. “Painting.”

He was about to rush off when Frank said, “There’s a letter for you on the counter if you didn’t spill coffee on it, that is.”

Gerard hesitated. The bedroom door was just a will’s away, open and inviting, where the dozens of paintings stood around and looked pretty. “About?”

“Don’t know, didn’t open it. It wasn’t addressed to me.”

Gerard was forced to open the letter. His heart nearly froze as he stood over the counter, the envelope ripped and forgotten, and the spotless paper in his hands.

 

>  
> 
> NOTICE OF EVICTION: RENT OR QUIT
> 
> Dear Mr. G. Way, room 402,  
> You are hereby notified that you currently owe $1200 worth of rent due for November and December this year. The rent due each month is $600, covered from the last day of a month to the following. Late charges have a 4% interest.  
> This is a demand for payment. You must pay the amount owed, $1248 (with 1 late charge), by next Monday, December 25th. If you fail to make full payment of the amount due, your right to possession of the property will be terminated and eviction proceedings will begin immediately. Partial payments are not accepted.

The paper was being crumpled in his grasp and the coffee mug hit the counter. An eviction notice at the end of December was terrible, but Gerard wasn’t really that surprised. He just hadn’t realized that it was already December, he hadn’t realized so much time had passed. That meant he was out of money. A merry Christmas, indeed.

“So,” Frank said, “What’s the letter about?”

But Gerard was too busy staring at the crumpled paper to care. Frank should have just left. It would’ve been better for everyone.

The bedroom door slammed shut without giving Frank an answer.

***

Frank didn’t love him. He couldn’t have loved him, there was no way. Unless – no, it wasn’t possible. Gerard was Gerard, after all.

He was painting again. By then, almost all of his supplies had been used up. All of his canvases, all of his paint, his paintbrushes were dry and covered in ten different colors. The face on the painting remained the same. It had the same wrong shade of green for the eyes, the same wrongly upturned nose. It wasn’t Frank, but damn was it similar. Even Gerard was proud by the nineteenth attempt.

There came a knock on the door just as he was admiring the latest work. He stared at the door, a guilty feeling lingered in his chest, as if, somehow, he was betraying Frank. As if, somehow, Frank would hate him for this.

“Come in,” he said anyway.

The doorknob rattled, but the door didn’t open. “I can’t. It’s locked.”

A second chance. Maybe Frank shouldn’t see him like this. Shouldn’t see _himself_ like this. Gerard thought about opening the door. He really didn’t know what to do.

“Look,” Frank said finally. “If you’re not going to open the door, _fine_. But you have to come out eventually because we need to talk about this apartment. You can’t lose it, okay? You can’t go live on the streets. You have no idea what it’s like.” He almost sounded sincere. Gerard tilted his head, wondering if Frank even remotely liked him.

“Gerard,” Frank continued, “it’s a fucking nuthouse out there. No one gives a shit about you. No one bothers to think twice about you. You’re all alone, all fucking alone, and wherever you step, people give you looks, they laugh at the way you look, and the smart ones walk in the opposite direction when they see you. Fuck them all.” Frank had a bitter tone in his voice. “If you don’t want to find a job because you can’t be bothered, fine. But find a job in fucking spite. Do it because you can. Show them that you’re worth more than-”

Frank didn’t finish his sentence because Gerard had opened the door. He had opened the door and was now staring at the man in his hallway. And the man was staring back.  
Although it took Frank a moment because there was no way, there was _no way_ that something like was possible, the smell hit him. An unaired room filled with the thick scent of some fancy paint mixed with Gerard’s body odor that hadn’t been washed off in a while.

Gerard, on the other hand, looked god awful, especially in the dim lighting. His eyes were still red and puffy, his lips still chapped, and his hair had somehow gotten worse since their previous encounter. The one thing one his mind, however, was the real shade of Frank’s eyes. He was staring at them now and realized just how wrong he was in the color. Disappointment crawled through him. He frowned.

“Gerard, what the fuck?” was the first thing to come from Frank’s pretty lips. God, Gerard knew that he hadn’t even seen the worst of it. Opening the door was a really bad idea, no matter how kind Frank had sounded on the other side.

Gerard tried to close it, he really did. He tried to shut it before Frank stepped inside, but his arm got caught in the way, and well, Gerard didn’t want to break any other bones. When Frank actually stepped inside, it felt like his _heart_ broke into a million pieces instead because the look the biker had on his face was a mixture of a lot of bad things.

At first, Frank’s original goal of opening a window was shattered because they were just dozens of paintings with a lot of blue on them. _A lot_ of blue. And blue was his favorite color. Then, Frank noticed that the paintings all had the same person. Of course, only after, did he realize that it was rather similar to him.

Gerard didn’t have it in him to pull Frank out of the room. It was like getting something off his shoulders. Like someone lifted a huge weight off his chest. He wanted Frank to know, he’d wanted Frank to know since the morning after the shower. Yet with a defeated slouch, almost as if it was obvious this was disgustingly wrong of him to do, he stared into Frank’s back and hoped for the best.

“You-” Frank trailed off. “They’re all, they’re all-” He didn’t continue, but he didn’t move. And Gerard didn’t know whether to feel hopeful or sickeningly ashamed of himself.

“Frank,” he croaked. When Frank didn’t turn around, he reached for his hand. It was yanked out from his grasp before he could even curl his fingers.

“Are they – are they of me?”

Gerard didn’t know how to answer.

“You’re sick.”

He felt his heart completely disappear. Like it never existed in the first place.

“You’re sick and crazy, and you belong in a madhouse!”

He looked at him like a lost puppy would.

“How could you draw me over and over again?!”

He didn’t even bother to think of an answer to that.

“I thought you were looking for a job!”

A job didn’t even feel right. Money just didn’t feel right, even less so when wasting time trying to earn it. Gerard just wanted to hold his hand.

“You need – you need help. You need help.” Frank started backing away, looking almost afraid. Creeped out. The room only had one exit. The closet wasn’t going to help him run away, it just had more paintings, the first few that didn’t turn out too well.

Eventually, the biker did hit the closet door, though luckily it was shut. He didn’t find four more blue canvases in there, just stopped at the pale white house paint and looked surprised. Gerard stepped forward, testing his limits. He just wanted to hold his hand. Frank didn’t move anywhere, so Gerard took another step. Maybe it was because the artist was taller, buffer even, but Frank seemed frightened as he moved toward him until all that could be heard throughout the whole apartment was the sound of Frank’s breath and the heartbeat of the person in front of him.

Gerard’s face was centimeters away from the Frank's. One hand leaned on the closet door, just above his head, the other was close to his waist. They weren’t touching him, because Gerard felt afraid, too, but he wanted to so badly. Frank was right there, right under him, squirming and pinned, with nowhere to go.

“Please,” Gerard said, “don’t scream.” And then he kissed him.

***

His heartbeat didn’t calm down after the kiss. His skin felt on fire. It was almost like there were bolts of electricity running through him. Sure, maybe it was the withdrawal of the painkillers. Maybe that was why Gerard was sweating, fidgeting, practically jumping up and down.

The bedroom was empty again. A window was open. The sheets had been changed. The paintings were gone, the pills, too. Mikey’s doing. Gerard felt empty as he sat on the bed and cried. Frank wasn’t everywhere anymore, just in his head. Like a sick joke.

There was screaming coming from the living room. Mikey was there, and Frank was with him. Gerard couldn’t tell who was yelling, but it didn’t sound like Frank. A few words were sent his way here and there, he could make out a few phrases, but the chills running through his body made his stomach churn every time, and it took everything not to throw up.

Sometime later, Frank appeared in the doorway. He looked sympathetic as he sat next to Gerard. Silence rang through both of their ears.

“So Mikey’s here,” Frank finally said.

Gerard wiped his nose sheepishly. “Because you called him.”

Frank looked at him. “What was I supposed to do? That’s not why I’m here, though.”

“You’re not supposed to be here. I knew it was a mistake. I knew that you living with me was a mistake.” Gerard started to cry again. “I get high on those painkillers, did you know that? Mikey knew it could’ve happened. I lost my grandmother, and I miss her, and then I crashed into you. I get high to forget. And now look what I’ve done.”

“Gerard, there are other ways-”

“You know why I don’t get high anymore?” Gerard looked at him, tearful and cold. “Because I hurt you in doing so. Because I watched you shower, I saw you naked, and I fell in love. There it is, that’s the truth.”

Frank didn’t say anything.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Gerard continued. “Because Mikey knows now, and to me, that means everyone does. Everybody knows that I’m a laughing stock who can’t hold down a drawing job. A fucking drawing job. And I love drawing,” he muttered.

Maybe Frank didn’t hate him, maybe words were just too difficult. Gerard felt a hand rub his back, and the touch alone sent him reeling because even though he wasn’t high anymore, and even though he couldn’t remember most of Frank without clothes, he was still absolutely and utterly in love.

After a long pause, Frank said, “Mikey wants to send you to a psych ward.”

And after another long pause, Gerard answered with, “Let him.”

And maybe Frank really didn’t hate him, because when there was yelling coming from the living room all over again, it sounded like Frank was the one who screamed. Screamed for Gerard to stay home.

***

“He’s gone?”

Frank was the only one in the kitchen. A nod came from him. He pointed toward a small envelope on the counter. “He left that for you. Twenty grand for three months’ rent. The rest for our groceries. He’s not giving any more.”

Gerard didn’t care about the money. “But he’s not coming back?”

Frank didn’t answer. He just sipped his coffee. He didn't seem too upset, though. Maybe he thought Gerard was just mentally unwell, that he couldn't be blamed.

The funniest thing was, that Gerard had never actually wanted to see Mikey again. He’d never wanted a phone call, to be dragged to Elena’s grave and reminded that there was a difference between her and his brother, that one was alive, one wasn’t. He never wanted to crash into Frank, and now he never wanted to let him go. Most importantly, he wanted his baby brother back.

“I miss him.” Gerard sat on the couch, the money far away from his mind, and stared at his fingers. Frank sat next to him.

“I know you do. But you can get better. You can go see someone, you can find help. Just let me _help_ you.”

Gerard looked up at him, their eyes locked and unable to break away from each other. It felt like eons were passing.

The next thing they knew, Gerard’s hands were cupping a stranger’s face.

Then he was kissing him.

At first, it was unclear if Frank was fighting back. But as his mug hit the floor, and the coffee spilled all over the carpet, Gerard couldn’t hold back. They were on the couch, with Gerard crawling forward, and Frank squirming under him. Their lips didn’t break away. Frank didn’t pull away.

Just as Gerard was about to lie down right on top of him, Frank sat up, straddled his hips, and kept kissing him. It felt as though the two were floating in a different dimension, as there was no due date for rent, no money running out of their pockets, it was truly just the two of them.

Gerard ran his hands up and down Frank’s thighs. There were too many clothes between them. He groaned as Frank bit his neck, his hands squeezed the clothed legs, and he lifted him up. Frank didn’t stop, it was really hard for Gerard to walk because his knees were about to give in from how good it felt. It was an accident when he slammed them both into the wall and knocked over a cheap vase, but the sound that came from Frank’s throat was so worth it, and on top of that, he was pinned to the wall again.

As much as playing and teasing sounded fun, Gerard wanted this to happen. He reached under the waistband of Frank’s pants, under his boxers where something warm and almost firm was already waiting for him. Maybe it was too strong of a squeeze because the back of Frank’s head hit the wall with a loud thud and a groan. And fuck, it was the hottest thing Gerard had ever heard.

One thing puzzled him, however. Why the hell was Frank letting this happen? But Gerard’s brain was a little occupied with other things. He started nipping at Frank’s neck, feeling how bruised his own was with every strain.

Gerard started working at his dick, his thumb running over the slit and collecting precum. Because of the sensation, Frank couldn’t keep his neck open enough to be bitten and kissed, so Gerard pressed him harder against the wall and let his other hand come up, forcefully turning his neck. Frank squeaked.

“Does that feel good? Am I making you feel good?” Gerard didn’t stop sliding his hand up and down. He could feel how Frank shivered from his words, and his actions only became rougher, he never actually wanted Frank to answer.

Frank started squirming under him, breathing loudly and unevenly, and pulling Gerard closer with his legs. While they attacked each other’s necks, Frank pulled his hair, bit at his earlobe, and it felt like he never wanted to stop. Gerard was tired of just standing, though. He grabbed Frank’s thighs again, blindly stumbling toward the bedroom, and he both of them against the wall once more. Frank was kissing him before he hit a doorframe and knocked over a painting.

Gerard pulled away to breathe, Frank took off his shirt, then pulled him back in. They finally stumbled into the bedroom, and Gerard threw him onto the bed, taking off his own shirt. There was a dangerous look in his eye, a mischievous smirk on his lips, and he crawled on top of Frank to kiss him some more.

The air that had once been fresh and cool was now becoming thicker with every pant. Gerard attacked Frank’s inked chest as his fingers went to unzip his pants, pulling them off entirely, and bit at a couple of strange tattoos he couldn’t bother to gawk at for more than two or three seconds. Frank fumbled with Gerard’s sweatpants until they were both just in boxers, and Gerard was so hard he thought he would die. His hand was still in Frank’s underwear, sliding and teasing, while his own hips rocked into the bed.

It was taking all of Gerard’s will not to start sucking him off, but eventually, he gave in. Frank’s face was worth it, his eyes now hidden under his hair, and his mouth letting Gerard hear everything he had ever dreamed of.

Now he wanted Frank to scream. To scream his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter took about 987654321 tries. It's so dark. I love it.


	12. Love's Gone, but we Carry On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He chooses defeat. He walks away. And leaves this place the same today. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of SUICIDE - please do not read if uncomfortable. This is purely for the story, it is not an option. Please always seek help.

Smoke twirled in the room. The blinds kept the sun from mercilessly showing its rays, and the atmosphere held a sort of shadowed aura. It was cool, quiet; the only sound audible was the sound of breath; of someone breathing in and out, it was serene. 

There were no labels. There _are_ no labels for such things, and there should’ve never been labels. Yet Gerard couldn’t help but ask, “What are we?”

It had been a quiet question, mixed in with his breath and the smoke of his cigarette, and spoken into the still air of the room. Dust floated around, illuminated by the few leaking rays of sunlight, and he blew out more smoke. There came no answer. 

The room still smelled vaguely of paint, though mostly now it smelled of sex and sweat. The heating was back on since the rent was paid, and now the apartment had a cozy feeling to it. Gerard had his arm under his head, staring up at the ceiling with little concern about his life. It felt right just to be there, in the moment. He didn’t know what was going to happen in the next few minutes. It was better to just enjoy it. 

Maybe Frank hated him. Maybe Frank pitied him. Neither of the two seemed good enough, though Gerard wasn’t sure if he wanted Frank to like him. Everything around him was a mess, and adding someone else to the list would only make it that: a longer list.  

Frank sighed, tangled in the sheets right next to him. The next thing Gerard knew, Frank was rolling out of the bed, disappearing from the room. It felt like he was regretting a lot of things. It hurt, but Gerard didn’t want to dwell on it too much. He watched Frank leave, all the tattoos beautifully on display for just him to see, and took another drag of the cigarette since smoking was all he was really known for doing. 

Distant noises came from the kitchen. As Gerard lay there, his almost freshly showered raven hair sprawled out on the pillow, the blanket covering just his lower half, Frank wandered in with two cups of coffee. There was no denying that Gerard looked like heaven like that, and there was no wonder Frank couldn’t resist crawling back into the sheets next to him. 

Gerard offered him a drag. And they were both sitting now, leaned against the headboard, with Frank’s head on his shoulder, the cigarette was passed along and the coffee rested in their hands. 

“I don’t know what we are,” Frank said. 

Gerard gazed at the leaking sunlight for a few moments. That wasn’t good enough of an answer. “Then maybe it’s best that we never know.”

For a few minutes, nothing changed. 

“For all the wrong reasons,” Gerard squinted slightly somewhere into the room, “you’re always in my head.”

He wanted to say so many more things. Something along the lines of how he was obsessed and desperate, and maybe a friendship wasn't going to be enough. Frank's body felt too good. They slid against each other too well. Gerard couldn't go back to the way it was. He refused to return to his empty canvases and faded memories of a foggy mirror. 

Even though Frank wasn't saying anything, it wasn't hard to tell what he was thinking. Gerard knew that there wasn't going to be any healthy relationship, it wasn't a fairy tale - it hadn't been from the beginning. 

But there was always hope that his world wasn't going to shit, so he ran his artistic fingers through Frank's hair, feeling how soft the short strands were. Maybe it was better if Frank just didn't answer. 

~*~

"Hey. It's me again. I'm sorry. I really am, and I'm better now. I'm getting so much better. I will pay you back. I will get that job - I have an interview today. As for Frank, he's looking for apartments and jobs of his own. We're doing fine thanks to you. And thank you so much for bringing back Dad’s car. I need it now more than ever. I love you, Mikey. I hope you'll call me back one day." The phone was becoming heavier in his hand every time he picked it up. His brother never answered anymore. Gerard was almost becoming worried. But he supposed it had been like that for the past seven years with the roles reversed. He shouldn't have been mad. And he wasn't. 

"No answer?"

"When was there ever?"

Frank narrowed his eyes. “You both are the same.”

“Hardly. I think we’re very different.” Gerard sat himself down next to Frank at the kitchen table, clutching his fifth or sixth cup of coffee. He was nervous about that interview. It was a wonder that the company had even wanted to meet with him. He didn’t want to screw it up. “Mikey has a right not to answer the phone. Me, on the other hand, I never had any rights. I’m awful.”

“I think you’re selfish.” Frank never failed to make Gerard feel worse about himself, especially recently. Maybe it was some sick twisted play of reverse psychology to make Gerard clean himself up, but it just felt like hatred, really.  

“I understand what you may think.” Gerard reached for Frank’s hand, then stared at it as he intertwined their fingers. “But I’m in love with you.”

Frank stayed quiet. Gerard didn’t have the courage to look into his eyes.

“I want you to stay with me. And I know I’m selfish for wanting that.” 

He traced the tattooed knuckles as gently as he could, trying to use the soft touch to calm himself down. 

Even now, Elena was in his mind. He had no one else to think of, really. Frank was with him, he tried not to think of Mikey because that just hurt. His parents? To him, they were already buried. He just hoped something would work out for once in his life. 

“You didn’t answer the question,” he said quietly. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed. Maybe he should have just left things the way they were.

“Which one?”

Gerard looked into his eyes. He could only see his paintings, what he’d done. The hazel held nothing but bad memories. But he wanted a definite answer. “What are we, Frank?”

“Friends.”

“You don’t-”

“I don’t love you.”

~*~

Fine. It was fine. One breath after the other and everything was going to be fine. There was always a time and place for things. Right now, there was an interview. Reflecting on terrible word choice would have come later. 

The car slowed to a stop in the parking lot. The building was smaller than the one from his previous job, hopefully working for a private company would be better than a public one. Hopefully, they’d treat him better here. Needless to say, he _really_ needed this job. His fingers shook as he closed the car door, more slammed it actually, then jumped at the loud noise. It reminded him of the clank of metal colliding - the car crash.

With as much bravery as he had, Gerard carried his little briefcase to the two rather large glass doors, behind them, sitting nothing but kind-looking people with happy smiles. They seemed welcoming, probably nice pay then. He felt welcomed. 

“Hi there.” He placed the briefcase on the spotless marble counter at the reception desk. There were large paintings of a lot of different comic book characters hanging behind the working ladies, Gerard thought they were marvelously drawn and colored, each looked to have a story of their own. He could definitely get used to this. “Interview. Gerard Way.”

And so he was led down a nice hallway into a nice room where there was a nice lady already waiting for him even though he was quite early. So what if he’d broken a few laws in driving there? 

Windows were everywhere. The room was bright and white and very professional-looking, much more the lady that was sitting on one of the couches with a notepad already prepared. She welcomed him. 

“The young Gerard Way. We’re very pleased to have an opportunity in working with you.”

“Really?” He shook her hand and sat himself down across from her. 

“Certainly. You’re the talent we’re missing. Though I understand you were let go from your previous employment?”

That was probably not the best to calm his nerves. “Yes. There were… family issues.”

“Of course. Most have those. Our one condition is that you call and let us know.”

“Surely.”

Questions came of experience, attitude toward others, leadership skills. If all went well, Gerard was going to have his own office, and some Tiffany or other would bring him coffee every morning. Somewhere along the conversation, the nerves came back - the lady asked about car insurance (since there were meetings around the city in various offices) which Gerard’s parents paid for, therefore he was unable to answer any questions about it. It was unpleasant. 

Just as the lady was speaking, his phone kept buzzing in the briefcase. At one point, even she had stopped just to stare at it. He was encouraged to answer the phone. It was Mikey. 

“Hey. I’m at an interview at the moment. Can I please call you back later?”

“No, don’t bother. Your court summonings came in the mail. Since _I_ talked to the police officers at the crash scene, you must be completely oblivious to the fact that you’re getting charged for everything. Frank should’ve gotten mail saying he’s a witness and is entirely allowed to put your ass in prison for up to two years. As for me, forget who the fuck I am. That should be easy anyway.”

Silence. Nothing but shallow breathing from Gerard, and a panicked look in his eye as he held the phone. Then Mikey hung up, and the ring of the disconnected line wasn’t acknowledged until the lady tapped her pen on the notepad. He slowly lowered his arm.

“Everything all right, Mr. Way?”

It was all coming back to him now, yes; his argument with Frank just before he’d gotten into his car and drove away. They’d yelled, waved their hands around. Frank had called him names, said he’d never be nice or selfless enough to be loved by someone. Gerard had said some bad things, too. He’d thrown things, that new vase was already in the trash. Gerard just wanted to hear something nice about himself from the one he loved. It only hurt when nothing but insults came out instead, he realized that maybe there hadn’t been anything nice to say in the first place.  

It was so obvious that Frank would never love him. There was a perfect explanation for everything that had happened until now anyway. Living together? Frank had nowhere else to go - Gerard was the one who took that freedom away from him. The showering? Frank probably went when he thought Gerard was asleep, specifically to avoid him. The sex? Well, that one hurt most of all because Gerard enjoyed it. Frank probably just wanted to get off like every other human being. At that point, Frank was just being nice about everything else, though he spoke his true feelings about Gerard when they’d fought. And now, it was obvious that Frank was going to put his ass in jail. 

“Mr. Way? Are we going to continue our interview, or do you need a few minutes?” 

Gerard looked at her. She seemed sincere enough. “Just family issues, Miss.”

“In that case, we’re finished here.” 

Oh no.

“But my drawings, I haven’t-” The briefcase was full of all of his favorite creations. They were supposed to get him this job, but she didn’t even want to look at them. He was a failure. 

“Mr. Way, you don’t understand. We’ll be very happy to have you.” She was smiling. 

“I- Are- Really?”

“Absolutely. Come in next week, and I’ll be happy to personally give you a tour of everything we have to offer.”

“That’s - that’s fantastic.” 

“A Merry Christmas to you from all of us. A fresh start with a new year.”

And with few more handshakes, a nod or two of the head, Gerard was back in his car, sitting and staring at the small, polished building. He was so fucked. 

His breath shook, he was probably crying. He was so scared. And then it was almost as if his hands were slamming against the steering wheel by themselves, his mouth opening to scream on its own. He was all fucking alone, and now he was going behind bars. 

As the engine hummed, and his foot pressed against the gas, his heartbeat would not calm down. The small streets of the suburbs blurred together, and then came the highway, where hundreds of other cars drove faster, raced with one another. It was probably a thrill. 

Gerard was trying to plan out his life. What was Frank going to say to him when he got home? What was he going to say? What would he do if Frank pressed charges? He wouldn’t be able to pay them. Mikey wasn’t going to pay them. And he would go to jail. 

The car sped by more slowly than usual. Gerard thought they went faster on a highway. 

Frank hated him. Frank fucking hated him. Mikey fucking hated him. 

What if he just-

Some time in prison never hurt anybody, except Gerard envisioned being beaten to death by some bored murderer. Being in prison would change him forever. His cellmate would make fun of him for being arrested because of a car accident - perhaps the dumbest way to get into a jail cell. 

It would be easier if-

Time was moving in slow motion. Breathing seemed to come easier now that he understood things. He was still crying, still gripping the steering wheel and pushing the gas pedal as hard as he could. Just one-

A red light. This time, he stopped. He was in first in the line of cars, watching how the highway merged with other big streets, how many people were trying to get somewhere. Pedestrians walked back and forth, there was a girl with a dog, an old man with a walker. He wondered if their life was so screwed up. 

He would- 

Maybe it was a sign of bravery. Maybe stupidity. Or maybe something was calling his name, urging him to do that, but the tears hadn’t stopped, and he was tired.

Gerard slammed the gas down. Fear took over as cars tried to avoid him, making noise in every corner. He shut his eyes, pushing out the tears. The wheel turned on its own. Screams and shouts were everywhere, squealing tires rang through his ears, but he wouldn’t dare open his eyes to see it happen. It was desperation. He wasn’t sure if he regretted it. 

Then, a lunge forward, perhaps even upside down and around. Maybe, Gerard thought, it would all just finally stop. 

~*~

A warm bed. 

A ticking wall clock.

The sheets that kept him warm from the open window’s breeze.  He searched for Frank next to him, but no one was there. 

Finally, his eyes opened. 

A ceiling with something like cobwebs. It was an old room, vaguely familiar though somehow not, and the wall he could see was covered in drawn pictures. Gerard rolled out of the bed, feeling the wood creak under him, this was very much real. 

He passed the open window that led to a large field - he was somewhere in the countryside. The drawings on the walls were all his, superheroes and colorful villains all from a distant childhood where his grandmother was his best friend. Now that he was thinking of her, he realized that this was her house. There were so many memories here, so much happiness had been here. 

His finger traced the childishly drawn little boy on the wall; under it, was the name ‘Mikey,’ and above it, there was a ‘Gerard.’ The rest of the things on the dresser were just as he remembered them, though he thought that dust would’ve been there by now. The house was supposed to be far away, old and abandoned with no one to take care of it. Did his parents still even own it?

There came a noise from outside the open window, something like an unusual creak of wood that suddenly became repetitive. When he glanced beyond the floating curtain, the old rocking chair was still on the front porch, swaying in the wind. 

And so Gerard went to explore. The house must’ve held answers as to who had brought him there, he was thinking perhaps his parents had finally come to their senses and decided to let him be. The hallway of the second floor was the same, sunlight peered in through his room, but not through the others, and the rest of the doors were still closed. He recognized one of the doors to be his parents’ room, another, Mikey’s. Were they here? Was everyone still asleep? 

The stairs creaked as he stepped down, his hand resting gently on the chipped railing. Everywhere was quiet. The house didn’t smell of cooking food as it had once in a distant memory. The television set had been untouched, the couch looked fresh and dustless, leaving Gerard to believe that his parents had rebuilt the place. He made note to thank them for it.  

The front door was closed, but through the window, he could see the swaying rocking chair, which a faded figure was now sitting in. Who could it have been? Gerard’s fingertips left the wooden rail, and his feet carried him to the door. He opened it. 

Elena. 

She was there, seated and knitting, a big smile on her face as she noticed him. She looked exactly as he remembered her, happy and loving, and her heart was the place where he always felt at home. Behind her, the vast field of their old farmhouse spread out further than the eye could see, covered in rows of tall grass. There was no sun, rather a bright sky and clouds. It didn’t seem like her house anymore, but there she was. He couldn’t believe it. 

“My child.” She extended her hand out to him, and when they touched, he could feel everything. Her skin was soft, her eyes bright - she was real. “You’re here.”

“I -” He couldn’t find the words to speak, only stared at their clasped hands and felt everything that was deemed impossible. 

“Hush,” she smiled, “All will be explained in due time. Right now, I need you to go back.”

“Go back? Where? I’m home.” Gerard felt to be on the verge of tears. He felt her. If she was alive all this time, why wasn’t she there for him? “I’m home, grandma.” 

“This is not your home yet. It is mine, and will be yours eventually.”

“I don’t - I don’t understand.”

“Go back, Gerard.”

A blinding white light, they said. Well, they were liars. This was the most tempting part of death, the ones who were there, waiting for you. There was no white light. Gerard refused to let her go again. 

“I want to stay with you.”

“It’s not your time.”

“It can be.”

She didn’t let go of his hand. He took that as hope of her letting him. 

“What happened to me?” he asked. “Another crash? I think-” he paused, looking away from her. He didn’t want her to see him cry. “I think this time, I wanted it. There was just too much going on, I-”

“Do not make excuses, Gerard. It’s not worth it.”

“I can’t live like that. Frank hates me. I can’t live thinking that the love of my life will be the one to send me to prison.”

She let out a soft laugh. “He’s not going to put you away.”

“But he doesn’t love me.”

“Maybe he will.”

Did she know? Was she sure? Gerard didn’t want to take that chance. He didn’t want to be in a prison cell with no one visiting him, with Mikey hating him possibly even more than Frank. Elena loved him, though. Why couldn’t he just stay with her? 

“And Mikey?”

“He’ll forgive you. That I can promise.”

There was a moment or two of silence, in which Gerard was listening to the wind and convincing himself to go back. It wasn’t working out too well.

“I love him, grandma.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“But I want to stay.”

She didn’t look disappointed, and she didn’t try to pull away. Frank would have. Mikey would have. 

Suddenly, there was a distant echo of his name. It sounded pleading, then became desperate, and the faint yet familiar sound of sirens rang through the field. Gerard searched for them, but he found nothing. 

“It’s them. It’s Frank calling for you,” she said.

“He found me?”

Gerard imagined him leaning over the bloody body in the car, with either a paramedic putting it in a body bag or taking it to the hospital. Was Frank upset? Did he regret saying all of those horrible things in their last conversation? Still, Gerard knew very well that all he’d ever be for Frank was a charity case. 

“I want to stay.” It wasn’t bravery this time. It was cowardice. Gerard didn’t want to take a chance that he would never truly be loved again.

“And Mikey? You’ll never see him again.”

Gerard didn’t let go of Elena’s hand as he sat down next to her on the floor of the porch, right up against the side of the house. It hurt to hear Frank’s voice, but that would go away soon, he was sure. 

“I’ll see him when the time comes. No one lives forever.”

Deep down, he had forgiven everybody for the fighting, for their words. He forgave Mikey for something he wasn’t sure of yet, and Frank, for saying the horrible truth right to his face. This was where he wanted to be - in the fields of Elena’s nice little house, where the birds sang lovely songs, and the rabbits were his friends; where the trees cast their cool shadows, and the water kept its warmth. 

“You should have forgotten me,” Elena said, but Gerard wasn’t looking at her until she handed him something. A thick book, then he tore his eyes away from hers. 

It was a sketchbook. An endless amount of pages for an endless amount of time. He opened it, his fingers running down the beautiful bind. This was where he resided now. This was where he was meant to reside.

“If I’d forgotten you, I would’ve had no one to live for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Frank putting a rose on his grave many months later, but everyone lives on somewhere. Greatly influenced by the amazing [July Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91PO2ZCJQ_E)! Thank you for sticking with me. I would love everyone's opinion on the ending <3


End file.
